The High Court may exercise its inherent power to quash criminal proceedings when allegations are inherently improbable, contradictory, or where the uncontroverted facts establish that the petitioner could not have committed the alleged offence, thereby preventing the abuse of the legal process.

ORDER :

Y. Lakshmana Rao, J.

Criminal Petition has been filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for brevity ‘the Cr.P.C.,’) by the Petitioner seeking quashment of the proceedings in C.C.No.36 of 2019 on the file of the learned III Additional District and Sessions Judge-cum-Special Judge for ACB Cases, Visakhapatnam wherein he has been arraigned as Accused No.12, for the alleged commission of offences punishable under Sections 403, 408, 409, 420, 465, 468, 471, 177, 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for brevity ‘the I.P.C.,’) read with Section 13(1)(c) and (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (for brevity ‘the Act’).

2. Heard the learned Counsel for the Petitioner and the learned Assistant Public Prosecutor.

3. Sri D.Krishna Murthy, learned Counsel for the Petitioner submits that the Petitioner, Peruri Sreerama Murthy, is a retired Government servant who served the Irrigation Department with distinction for over three decades, having been appointed as Assistant Engineer on 05.12.1976 and having demitted office honourably as Deputy Executive Engineer upon superannuation on 30.09.2006. It is urged that the initiation and continuation of criminal proceedings against such a person, bereft of any credible or legally sustainable foundation, constitutes a manifest abuse of the process of the Court and warrants the exercise of this Court’s inherent jurisdiction under Section 482 of ‘the Cr.P.C.,’ to quash the same.

4. Learned Counsel for the Petitioner further submits that the Petitioner was duly promoted as Deputy Executive Engineer and was accordingly relieved from his posting as Assistant Engineer in the Vamsadhara Project Maintenance Division, Narasannapeta, Srikakulam District, on 07.07.2005, whereafter he assumed charge as I/C Deputy Executive Engineer in the Special Minor Irrigation Division, Irrigation Circle, Visakhapatnam. It is emphatically contended that from the said date, the Petitioner had no connection whatsoever, in any capacity, with the BRR Vamsadhara Project Circle, Srikakulam.

5. Learned Counsel for the Petitioner furthermore submits that the charge sheet filed by the Deputy Superintendent of Police, CID, Regional Office, Visakhapatnam, itself categorically avers at paragraph No.60 that the alleged offences occurred between 2006 and 2009, and that the decision to procure and install Screw Gear Shutters in the Vamsadhara Project Left Main Canal was formally taken only on 15.04.2006, vide Memo No.VPC/DB/3709 issued by the Superintending Engineer, Vamsadhara Project Circle. It is submitted that since the Petitioner had already been transferred out of the said project nearly one full year prior to this decision, there existed no legal, factual, or physical possibility of his having prepared any estimates in connection therewith, and the foundational premise of the prosecution’s case accordingly collapses upon its own irreconcilable internal inconsistency.

6. Learned Counsel for the Petitioner submits that it is a well-settled proposition of law, affirmed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in a long line of authoritative decisions, that where the allegations contained in a charge sheet, even if taken at face value and accepted in their entirety, do not disclose the commission of any cognizable offence, the High Court is not merely empowered but is duty-bound to quash the proceedings. It is urged that the present case is a textbook illustration of precisely such a situation warranting the exercise of that salutary jurisdiction.

7. Learned Counsel for the Petitioner further submits that a careful perusal of the charge sheet reveals a conspicuous and fatal absence of any specific, particularised, or individuated allegation of an overt act attributable exclusively to the Petitioner. It is pointed out that paragraph No.11 of the charge sheet, which purports to describe the role of Assistant Engineers and Assistant Executive Engineers including Accused Nos.12 to 18, 30, and 32 to 39, does no more than