THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE N.R.L. NAGESWARA RAO CRIMINAL PETITION No. 3251 of 2008 ORDER: The present petition is filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short “Cr.P.C.) to quash the proceedings in C.C.No.1255 of 2006 on the file of the I Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Hyderabad. The petitioner herein is the accused and the 1st respondent is the complainant, who instituted a case for offence under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short “IPC”). Both the petitioner and 1st respondent belong to superior officers of All India Service and they are members of Indian Forest Service. It appears that when the accused was working as a Conservator of Forests, Rajahmundry, there was a news item published in Andhra Jyothi Telugu daily on 03.07.2003, 04.07.2003, 08.07.2003 and 18.07.2003 attributing some misconduct and irregularities against the accused. Responding to those complaints, the accused is said to have sent a letter on 24.07.2003 to the Chief Secretary with regard to the publications and attributing that the complainant was the person behind the adverse news items to damage his personality and also to see that the complainant himself gets posted at Rajahmundry. By sending that complaint, specific allegations were made against the complainant as the person responsible for the defamatory publications. The complainant thereafter filed the present application, which was taken on file. Earlier Crl.P.No.2939 of 2004 was filed to quash the proceedings and this Court in its order dated 14.06.2006 has gone into the maintainability of the complaint particularly with reference to the allegations contained therein and also the offence alleged and came to the conclusion that the contentions about the truthfulness and the justification of the remarks or the allegations made against the complainant by the accused have to be only decided during the trial as it is a question of fact. Therefore, in view of the dismissal of the earlier application, in this application it is not necessary for me to reconsider as to whether any offence has been committed or not and as to whether the plea of good faith and justification of the remarks as true cannot be gone into. Being conscious of the above situation, the efforts made in this application are to the effect that as per the Service Rules governing the complainant and the accused, no complaint can be lodged without the sanction of the Government. Reliance is placed on Rule 17 of the All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968, as under: “17. Vindication of acts and character of members of the Service:- No member of the Service shall, except with the previous sanction of the Government have recourse to any Court or to the press for the vindication of official act which has been the subject matter of adverse criticism or attack of the defamatory character. Provided that if no such sanction is conveyed to by the Government within 12 weeks from the date of receipt of the request, the member of the service shall be free to assume that the sanction sought for has been granted to him. Explanation:- Nothing in this rule shall be deemed to prohibit a member of the Service from vindicating his private character or any act done by him in his private capacity. Provided that he shall submit a report to the Government regarding such action.” Basing on the above Rule, accoridng to the contention of the petitioner herein, since the prosecution was initiated when the petitioner was discharging his duties and the report submitted by him on 24.07.2003 was also in discharge of his duties, therefore, sanction is necessary. On the other hand, the learned counsel for the respondent No.1 contends that the report was send suo-moto and nobody has asked the accused to send such a report and, therefore, the sanction as required under Rule 17 of the All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968 is not necessary and only an information is sufficient. The learned counsel for the petitioner relies upon the Circular said to have been issued by the Forest Department dated 29.05.1998, whereunder the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests has directed that in case of any adverse publication of news causing damage to the Department, rejoinders are to be given promptly and the Conservator of Forests and Divisional Forest Officers are directed to issue rejoinders with self-contained factual notes through District Public Relations Officer. A copy of the said rejoinder shall be sent to the Conservator of Forests (Vigilance). The rejoinder is to be given within 24 hours after the publication of news item. Therefore, the above Circular mandates a rejoinder to be given in the newspapers through the District Public Relations Officer. It does not contemplace sending of a report by the accused directly without issuing any rejoinder to the publication. In fact, in this case, there is nothing on record to show that a rejoinder was given in the newspapers throgh the District Public Relation Officer as contemplated. It was only sent the letter under consideration, which was sent as a representative expressing a personal grievance about the conduct of the complainant. Therefore, the accused cannot claim that the action that was taken by him is as per the Circular issued by the superior authorities. In such circumstances, at this stage, prima facie it is very difficult to accept that what was done by the accused, was in obedience to the Circular of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, referred to above. In fact, on this aspect, any defence of the petitioner is kept open to be decided only during the trial and at the time of adducing the evidence by the parties. In view of my above finding, the decisions reported in the cases of State of Haryana and others v. Ch.Bhajan Lal and others[1], Prakash Singh Badal and another v. State of Punjab and others[2], Jayasingh v. K.K.Velayutham and another[3] and Dasari Narayana Rao and another v. Smt.B.V.S.Lakshmi and another[4], have no application to the facts of the case as which isnot found at this stage that the action of the accused-petitioner was in discharge of his duties. Therefore, in view of the above circumstances, there are no merits in the application and the petition is liable to be dismissed. Accordingly, the Criminal Petition is dismissed. ________________________ N.R.L. NAGESWARA RAO, J Date: 01-08-2011 MR THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE N.R.L. NAGESWARA RAO CRIMINAL PETITION No. 3251 of 2008 01-08-2011 MR [1] AIR 1992 SC 604 [2] AIR 2007 SC 1274 [3] AIR 2006 SC 2407 [4] 1994(2) A.P.L.J. 150 (HC)