JUDGMENT

KOSHAL, J.:— This appeal by special leave is directed against a judgment of a learned single Judge of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana quashing a complaint dated the 16th July, 1975 made by Bhappa Singh appellant with a prayer that respondents Nos. 1 to 9, who are admittedly officials of the Excise and Customs Department, be convicted of offences under Ss. 307, 452, 504, 342 and 148 read with S. 149 of the Penal Code.

2. Briefly the charge made in the complaint was that the accused-respondents had raided a jewellery shop of the complainant on the 12th June, 1975 and had simultaneously trespassed into the Chaubara of an adjoining shop in which Gurdev Singh, son of the appellant, was carrying on cloth business, that the respondents came in two groups and that the group which had entered the shop had hurled abuses at the appellant and his people and had demanded a bribe, while the other group entered the cloth shop and rushed into the Chaubara upstairs, where they fired shots in order to commit dacoity.

3. In quashing the complaint the learned single Judge gave the respondents the benefit of S. 108 of the Gold (Control) Act, 1968, which runs thus :

"No suit, prosecution or o