IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. Crl.Misc.Petition No. M-33802 of 2009 Date of Decision: 2.12.2009 Jai Singh and others. ....... Petitioners. Versus State of Punjab. ....... Respondent. CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE MAHESH GROVER .... Present: Shri N.P.S.Mann, Advocate for the petitioners. .... 1. Whether Reporters of Local Newspapers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? .... Mahesh Grover,J. This is a petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure,1973 (for short, `the Cr.P.C.') for quahsing F.I.R.No.75 dated 25.6.2008 registered against the petitioners under Sections 420, 120-B of the Indian Penal Code,1860 at Police Station, Dera Bassi, District S.A.S. Nagar (Mohali). Learned counsel for the petitioners contended that a Division Bench of this Court disposed of six writ petitions vide judgment dated 23.10.2008 (Annexure P5) and the following directions were given:- Crl.Misc.Petition No.M-33802 of 2009 -2- .... “1. The Deputy Commissioner, S.A.S. Nagar, shall expeditiously examine and determine the total extent of village Panchayat/ Shamlat land in village Bhankerpur. 2. Upon determination of the said question based on revenue records available to the Deputy Commissioner, he shall have appropriate proceedings under section 7 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act,1961, initiated against those, in unauthorised occupation of any part of the land. These proceedings shall be in addition to the proceedings, already instituted against other occupants under Section 7, to which the Deputy Commissioner has referred in the affidavit, filed in this Court. 3. The petitioners in writ petitions No. 7139 of 2006 and 5489 of 2007 shall be free to apply to the Collector (Common Land), S.A.S.Nagar, under Section 11 for determination of any right, title or interest in any part of the land found to be village Panchayat/ Shamlat land by the Deputy Commissioner. If such an application is moved within two months from today, the interim directions regarding maintenance of status quo as regards nature, title and possession of the land in question shall continue till such time the entire controversy is resolved by the competent authority in accordance with law. Crl.Misc.Petition No.M-33802 of 2009 -3- .... All pending applications shall also stand disposed of in terms of the above order. The parties to bear their own costs.” He submitted that pursuant to the above directions, the proceedings before the Court of competent jurisdiction are going on and it is yet to be determined as to whether the persons, who are in occupation of the land in question, are unauthorised occupants or are having any valid right, title or interest therein. He, thus, contended that till the time the controversy is settled, the petitioners cannot be burdened with the criminal prosecution and their complicity can only be considered if any criminality is established on behalf of the occupants of the land in question because the role attributed to the petitioners, who are merely Nambardars is of facilitating the alleged unauthorised occupation by some of the persons. Learned counsel for the petitioners argued that continuance of the proceedings against the petitioners would be an abuse of the process of law and that the police is unnecessarily harassing and trying to apprehend them. I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioners at some length and have gone through the whole record. The dispute had erupted regarding unauthorised occupation of shamlat land by some persons with the connivance of the petitioners, who were Nambardars and some revenue officials. Some writ petitions came to be filed in this Court in public interest alleging that panchayat and shamlat Crl.Misc.Petition No.M-33802 of 2009 -4- .... land had been grabbed by what was described as `land mafia' and a direction was sought to the official respondents to hold a high level enquiry into the matter involving illegal sale and purchase of shamlat land and to take steps for protecting the same for the benefit of the residents of the panchayat area. While disposing of the said writ petitions, the above reproduced directions were given by this Court and during the proceedings initiated pursuant thereto, the instant F.I.R. was got registered. It was again during the course of proceedings in the aforesaid writ petitions, that the State of Punjab filed a written statement in which it was disclosed that the Deputy Magistrate had, written letter dated 422-R dated 17.7.2007 to the Senior Superintendent of Police, S.A.S.Nagar (Mohali) to register a case against four Nambardars and one Joginder Singh, yet, no F.I.R. was registered against the said persons. It is in this backdrop that the instant F.I.R. was registered against the petitioners. Therefore, their prayer for quashing the same is seemingly misplaced as it is clear that the authorities concerned had taken a decision to register an F.I.R. much prior in time and the pendency of the public interest litigation only prodded them to act in conformity with their own decision. The matter is being investigated and it is the settled principle of law that power under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. cannot be used to throttle an investigation. The Court, while exercising its jurisdiction under section 482 of the Cr.P.C., is clearly precluded from commenting on the truthfulness of the allegations which can be established only by a competent Crl.Misc.Petition No.M-33802 of 2009 -5- .... investigating agency which has necessary tools to determine the truth. Simply because the civil Courts or the Courts of competent jurisdiction are trying to determine the question of title or validity of possession, it does not mean that the allegations which have been made in the F.I.R. alluding to criminality and attributing roles to the persons involved therein can be termed to be baseless when the investigation is at the threshold. There is, thus, no reason to grant the prayer of the petitioners and the instant petition is totally misconceived and is, accordingly, dismissed. December 2,2009 ( Mahesh Grover ) “SCM” Judge