IMPORTANT POINTS
Where continuation of a prosecution would lead to abuse of process of court, power under Section 482 of the Code must be exercised and proceedings must be quashed.
2. The protection given under Section 197 of the Code is available only when the alleged act done by the public servant is reasonably connected with the discharge of his official duty and is not merely a cloak for doing the objectionable act.

Judgment :-

(SMT.) RANJANA PRAKASH DESAI, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. Jamshedpur, taking cognizance of the offences alleged in the complaint.

3. Brief facts of the case need to be stated:

Appellant Kailashpati Singh is the complainant. On 23/7/2004, he filed a complaint in the Court of C.J.M, Jamshedpur being Complaint Case No.731 of 2004 against (1) Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Dy.S.P.-II, (2) Pradeep Kumar, S.I., (3) Omprakash, S.I., (4) Shyam Bihari Singh, constable and (5) Bharat Shukla, constable. In the complaint, the complainant alleged that his son Amit Pratap Singh @ Munna Singh (for convenience, “deceased Munna Singh”) was killed in a fake encounter by the accused named in the complaint including three others on 1/7/2004 at about 10.30 p.m. at Domohani, Sonari, Jamshedpur. According to the complainant, he received telephonic message on 2/7/2004 from one Sanjay Kumar of Jamshedpur that his son was killed in an encounter. This news was also published in the local newspapers of Jamshedpur. As per the newspaper report, along with the deceased, three others viz. Rajib Dubey, Babloo Prasad and Rambo were also killed. According to the complainant, he rushed to Jamshedpur with his eldest son Krishna Singh and contacted the Jamshedpur Police Authorities for the purpose of receiving the dead body of his son for cremation. However, the police refused to handover the dead body. Therefore, the complainant’s eldest son Krishna Singh reported the matter to the Deputy Commissioner, East Singhbhum, Jamshedpur. However, the police did not hand over the dead body of the deceased in spite of repeated requests made to the proper authorities. It is the complainant’s case that he later on came to know that the police had obtained signature of one Sanjay Kumar under coercion on a challan, showing that the dead body was received by him. Instead of handing over the dead body to Sanjay Kumar, according to the complainant, it was cremated at Parvati Ghat, Adityapur. The complainant and members of his family were kept in dark. This was done to destroy the evidence and manufacture the story of police encounter. It is the case of the complainant that deceased Munna Singh was not involved in any criminal activities. He used to provide his jeep to people on rent at Jamshedpur and other places and earn his livelihood. According to the complainant, deceased Munna Singh was falsely involved in Sonari P.S. Case No.15 of 1994 dated 6/3/1994 under Section 392 of the Indian Penal Code (for short, “the IPC”). As a matter of fact, on that day, he was only 9 years old. The complainant stated that the postmortem report shows that three bullets were found in the chest of deceased Munna Singh indicating that he was killed by the police by firing from close range. The complainant took exception to the fact that the autopsy was not video-graphed. The complainant also contended that the accused committed the offence not in discharge of their official duties, therefore, no sanction was required to prosecute them under Section 197 of the Code. According to the complainant, the accused have thus committed offence under Sections 120-B, 203 and 302 read with Section 34 of the IPC.

4. The other version which also needs to be stated is disclosed from the FIR lodged on 1/7/2004 by one Jeevan Prasad Naredi, a dealer in scrap that on 1/7/2004 at 9.50 p.m. some miscreants came to his house riding on motor cycles. They were armed with firearms. They fired at his office situated in his house and ran away. This was done to threaten him and to force him to yield to their ransom demand. It is the case of the police personnel as disclosed in the FIR lodged by the Dy.S.P. Rajiv Ranjan Singh that, having received information about this incident, the police set out to arrest the accused. They traced them and asked them to surrender. However, instead of surrendering, they fired at the police. The police had to retaliate to save themselves and, in that, four criminals were killed. The rest escaped.