Point of Law: To attract Section 13(d) (i), (ii) and (iii), there must be an allegation that public servant by corrupt or illegal obtained for himself or for any other person any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage.

ORDER :

1. All these three Crl. M.C. have been preferred to quash F.I.R. in V.C. No. 06/2022/TSR of VACB, Thrissur.

2. The petitioners are the accused Nos. 1, 2 and 5 to 10. The offences alleged are punishable under Sections 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) (i, ii, iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act 2018, along with Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

3. The accused No. 1 is the Taluk Land Board Chairman and Deputy Collector (LR), Thrissur. The accused No. 2 is the Tahsildar, Thrissur Taluk, who is the Ex-officio member of the Taluk Board. The accused Nos. 3 and 4 are Taluk Land Board members, Thrissur Taluk. The accused No. 5 is the managing director, and the accused Nos. 6 to 10 are the directors of M/s. Thomson Granites Pvt. Ltd. (for short ‘the Company’) a private limited company registered under the Indian Companies Act engaged in the quarrying business. The accused No. 11 is described as ‘Public servants in various departments’.

4. The prosecution case, in short, is that the accused Nos. 5 to 11 conspired together since 2003 to undertake mining activity illegally in 19.0938 hectares of assigned forest land at Ollukkara Village, which was purchased and registered in the name of the Company, paid land tax and generated other certificates for production before the Mining and Geology department, thereby obtaining mining sanction wrongfully. It is further alleged that, in the year 2019, the accused Nos. 1 to 4, being the Chairman and Members of the Taluk Land Board, Thrissur, as such being public servants, connived and conspired with the accused Nos. 5 to 11 by misusing their official capacity and by violating Section 81 of the Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963 (for short ‘the KLR Act’) and Rule 3 of the Kerala Land Assignment Special Rules 1993 and also by suppressing the report of the Tahsildar Ceiling and Return, illegally issued Order No. LR1-4070/18 dated 2/4/2019 (for short ‘the impugned order), in favour of the Company for exempting the company-owned forest land of 19.0938 hectares mentioned above as a commercial site for quarrying purposes by way of accepting pecuniary benefits without public interest involved and for performing the official duty improperly.

5. I have heard Sri. Johnson Gomez, the learned counsel for the accused Nos. 1 and 2, Sri. Paul Jacob, the learned counsel for the accused Nos. 5 to 11 and Sri. A. Rajesh, the learned Special Public Prosecutor.

6. The learned counsel for the accused Nos. 1 and 2 Sri. Johnson Gomez submitted that the allegations in the FIR, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety do not prima facie constitute any offence or make out any case against the accused Nos. 1 and 2. The learned counsel further submitted that accused No. 1 being the Chairman and accused No. 2 being the Ex-officio member of the Taluk Land Board, which is a quasi-judicial authority constituted under Section 100A of the KLR Act, are entitled to protection against prosecution. F.I.R. was registered without obtaining sanction under Section 17-A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, added the counsel.

7. The learned counsel for the accused Nos. 5 to 10 Sri. Paul Jacob submitted that the averments in the FIR do not constitute any offence whatsoever against the accused Nos. 5 to 10. The learned counsel further submitted that accused Nos. 5 to 10 have been roped in their official capacity as directors of a duly incorporated Company and without the Company in the array of the accused, a criminal prosecution against the directors alone could not stand. The counsel also submitted that the prosecution is bad since no previous sanction of the State Government was obtained.

8. The learned Special Public Prosecutor Sri. A. Rajesh submitted that this court under the exercise of its inherent power under section 482 of Cr.P.C. should not interfere with the investigation when the FIR discloses the commission of a cognizable offence.

9. As