ORDER :

Y. Lakshmana Rao, J.

Criminal Petition has been filed under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (for brevity ‘the BNSS’) by the Petitioner/Accused No.2, seeking to quash the proceedings against him in FIR.No.32 of 2025 of Atmakur Police Station.

2. Sri Challa Siva Sankar, learned Counsel for the Petitioner submits that the present Criminal Petition has been preferred assailing the Cognizance Order dated 17.02.2025 passed by the learned Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Atmakur, Kurnool (Nandyal) District in C.F.R.No.06/2025, and the consequential FIR No.32/2025 dated 22.02.2025, registered on the file of Atmakur Police Station under Sections 2(37), 198, 199, 257, 318(4), 335, 336(1), 336(3), 339, 340(2) r/w 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (for brevity ‘the BNS’) and Section 175(3) of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (for brevity ‘the BNSS’). It is submitted that the Respondent No.2/De-facto Complainant has blatantly abused the process of law by instituting a manifestly false and motivated private complaint against the Petitioner and three others. The private complaint, originally presented before the learned Magistrate on 20.08.2024 under Section 200 of ‘the Cr.P.C.,’ was filed without a sworn affidavit as mandatorily required under Sections 223(1) and 223(2) of ‘the BNSS’, in flagrant contravention of the binding guidelines laid down by the Hon’ble Apex Court in Priyanka Srivastava v. State of U.P., (2015) 6 SCC 287 It is further submitted that the learned Magistrate committed a grave procedural irregularity by taking cognizance on 17.02.2025 without affording any opportunity to the accused and without adherence to the procedure contemplated under the law, thereby rendering the cognizance order ex-facie illegal, void, and liable to be set aside.

3. Learned Counsel for the Petitioner further submits that the private complaint filed by Respondent No.2 is not only procedurally defective but is also actuated by mala fide intent and motivated by collateral purposes. The Respondent No.2, having failed to obtain any favourable orders in W.P.No.584/2021, W.P.No.36693/2022, and W.P.No.3183/2024 filed before this Court, and having equally failed before the learned Revenue Divisional Officer whose order dated 20.04.2023 disposed of the appeal preferred against the Tahsildar’s Order dated 20.03.2021, has now resorted to the present private complaint as a tool of coercion and harassment against Government servants, with the oblique motive of bending public officials to secure favourable orders in his ongoing civil and revenue disputes. It is further submitted that the complaint is shrouded in deliberate suppression of material facts, inasmuch as Respondent No.2 has conspicuously failed to disclose the date of the alleged occurrence and has offered no satisfactory explanation for the inordinate delay of nearly four years in approaching the learned Magistrate, thereby rendering the complaint hopelessly belated and lacking bona fides. It is also germane to point out that the alleged complaint to the Station House Officer was made only on 02.11.2024 and to the Superintendent of Police on 05.11.2024, evidencing a hastily constructed chain of complaints designed to lend a semblance of procedural compliance to an otherwise malicious prosecution.

4. Learned Counsel for the Petitioner furthermore submits that the Petitioner/Accused No. 2, being a Government servant, is entitled to the statutory protection enshrined under Section 197 of ‘the Cr.P.C.,’ as the allegations levelled against him pertain exclusively to acts performed in his official capacity in the discharge of his public duties. The registration of an FIR against a public servant for acts attributable to the exercise of official functions, without obtaining the prior sanction of the competent authority, is wholly impermissible in law, as authoritatively settled by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in D.T. Virupakshappa v. C. Subash, (2015) 12 S