Point of law: scope of doctrine of double jeopardy, observing that “in order to attract the provisions of Article 20(2) of the Constitution, there must have been both prosecution and punishment in respect of the same offence. The words ‘prosecuted’ and ‘punished’ are to be taken not distributively so as to mean prosecuted or punished. Both the factors must coexist in order that the operation of the clause may be attracted.” But in the present case petitioner is not prosecuted and punished and hence bar under Article 70(2) does not apply

ORDER :

1. This writ petition is filed to declare the action of the respondents-police officers in registering separate-separate crimes for same and similar allegations as forming part of Cr. No. 33 of 2020, as illegal and arbitrary and consequential direction is sought to the 7th respondent to take up the investigation of all the crime numbers namely Cr. Nos. 28, 73, 74, 85, 86, 87, 268, 269, 270, 271 and 272 of 2020 of Anantapuramu I Town P.S. Cr. Nos. 28, 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 99, 100, 101, 104, 105, 106, 111, 112, 113, 530, 542, 543, 544, 545, 547, 548 and 549 of 2020 of Tadipatri Town P.S. Cr. No. 96 and 97 of 2020 of Tadipatri Rural P.S. Cr. No. 187 of 2020 of Peddapappur P.S. Cr. No. 49, 50 and 51 of 2020 of Orvakal P.S. of Kurnool District and submit a final report in terms of Section 173 of Cr.P.C. before the jurisdictional Court.

2. Heard Sri. Vedula Venkata Ramana, learned senior counsel for the petitioners and the learned Advocate General, appearing for the official respondents. With the consent of both the counsel the Writ Petition is being disposed of at the admission stage.

3. Case of the petitioners, in brief is that:

(a) They were falsely implicated as accused in Cr. No. 33 of 2020 dated 08.02.2020 for the alleged offences under Sections 420, 467, 471, 120-B and Section 34 of IPC and in similar crimes by the respondents 7 to 10 who are the complainants.

(b) The allegations in those crimes are that M/s Ashok Leyland, who is a manufacturer of heavy trucks, sold scrap (Bharat Stage-III) trucks to two entities, namely M/s Jatadhara Industries and C. Gopal Reddy and Company and these trucks were registered before the Regional Transport Authority, State of Nagalanad and were subsequently, re-registered before the Regional Transport Authority, Ananthapuramu. Subsequently, the 7th respondent i.e. the Deputy Transport Commissioner gave a complaint stating that the said registration process is illegal and a case in Cr. No. 33 of 2020 was registered; similar/same complaints were given by respondents 8 to 11 in respect of certain other trucks.

(c) As per the law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in T.T. Antony vs. State of Kerala, (2001) 6 SCC 181, which is reiterated and reaffirmed in Amitbhai Anilchandra Shah vs. Central Bureau of Investigation, (2013) 6 SCC 348, when a particular FIR is registered and is under investigation, there cannot be registration of analogous/similar complaints and in other words, there can be only one FIR and all subsequent information is liable to be tagged on to the same FIR and the accused cannot be burdened with multiple investigation process; the relief sought in the present writ petition is restricted to clubbing of all the same or similar FIRs with the first one i.e. Cr. No. 33 of 2020 and that a single investigation shall be proceeded with.

4. Counter-affidavit is filed by the 1st respondent, on behalf of respondents 1 to 6, stating inter-alia that:

(a) Each case is having different and distinct cause of action like creating fake documents, fake insurance policies, changing the chassis, converting as buses and running them as stage carriers and hence clubbing of the cases is not possible; that the investigation has to be done at different places; in one case, 9th respondent is the complainant which is filed against the 2nd petitioner.

(b) Investigation disclosed that, BS-III vehicles were purchased from M/s Ashok Leyland Company in the States of Tamilnadu, Uttarakhand and other States as scrap and by showing them as BS-IV vehicles, got them registered in the State of Nagaland.

(c) Changes were made to some of the vehicles and showed them as road worthy buses by manipulating the records.

(d) They created fake insurance policies.

(e) The staff of Ashok Leyland Company have to be examined in the State’s of Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu.

(f) Forty(40) cases were registered against the petition