Procedural safeguards in declaring a person a proclaimed offender must be strictly adhered to; otherwise, such declarations will be deemed invalid.

JUDGMENT

Manoj Kumar Ohri, J. The present petition has been filed under Section 482 Cr.P.C. on behalf of the petitioner seeking setting aside of the order dated 23.03.2010 passed by the learned ACMM (SE), New Delhi in FIR No.385/03 registered under Sections 448/380/420/468/471/506/120B IPC at P.S. Sarita Vihar, Delhi, vide which the petitioner was declared a `proclaimed offender' (hereinafter, referred to as `PO').

2. To put briefly, the present FIR was registered on the complaint of one Noor Ahmad/complainant, wherein it was stated that he was bequeathed the stated property by his father. One Atique Ahmad, i.e. brother of the complainant, was permitted by him to reside on the first floor of the property, while he himself visited the same from time and time. On one such visit, the complainant found the property occupied by the petitioner and others, whom he knew from before, and his belongings/valuables missing. On the complainant making enquiry, the said persons, including the petitioner, extended threats for life. Soon after, Atique Ahmad arrived at the spot. He claimed that he had sold the property to co-accused/Altamash and ousted the complainant. Later, it came to light that Atique Ahmad had forged the signatures of the petitioner's father on documents relating to the property and sold the same to accused/Altamash and others. The charge sheet in the case was filed on 19.05.2007. Vide order dated 09.09.2004, the petitioner was admitted to bail in the present case by the learned Metropolitan Magistrate.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that in the present case, the process under Section 82 Cr.P.C. was issued against the petitioner at wrong address. Pursuant to the grant of bail, the petitioner had furnished his bail bond, wherein address of E-*, Muradi Road, Batla House, Okhla (hereinafter, referred to as the `old property/old address') was mentioned. However, subsequently, he and his family members entered into litigations, involving partition of properties owned by his father. As a result thereof, the old property, address whereof was mentioned in the bail bond furnished before the Trial Court, went to the share of the petitioner's brother, while another property i.e. House No.3**, Okhla, Jamia Nagar (hereinafter, referred to as `the new property/new address') came to his own share. The petitioner started living at his new address and thereafter shifted to Noida for some time for a job. Eventually, he shifted back to the new property, but in all that time, he was not approached by any police official regarding the present case. As a result, he was not aware of the NBWs and/or the proclamation issued against him, and obtained knowledge of the same only in the year 2021, when co-accused/Altamash was arrested.

It was stressed that the petitioner was not intentionally concealing himself, inasmuch as his new address was available in the records of CS (OS) No.1948/2006 pending before this Court. In this regard, it was contended that a copy of the order passed in the civil suit is before the Trial Court, and is also likely to have been made available to the concerned Officer who approached the old address to serve process under Section 82 Cr.P.C., where instead of the petitioner, his brother was residing at the time as a result of the partition proceedings.

It was further submitted that the impugned order suffers from the vice of non-application of mind, as the concerned Court failed to record any reason for believing that the petitioner was intentionally avoiding service/process and issued proclamation without following due procedure. It was stressed that the pr