Point of Law : High Court may exercise the powers under Section 226 of Constitution or the inherent powers under Section 482 of Cr.P.C. to prevent abuse of process of Court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice.

ORDER :

By way of this petition, petitioner has prayed for following substantive relief:-

“It is, therefore, respectfully prayed that the present petition may kindly be allowed and the FIR bearing number 22/2019, lodged at Police Station Bhawanagar/Nichar, District Kinnaur, dated 01.04.2019 against the present petitioner and the subsequent proceedings pending before Ld. Sessions Judge, Kinnaur bearing No. 62/2019 may kindly be quashed and set aside in the interest of justice and fair play.”

2. Brief facts necessary for adjudication of the petition are that the Executive Engineer, National Highway Division, HPPWD, Rampur Bushehr, vide award letter dated 09.02.2018 had awarded, to the petitioner, the work of widening to two lanes with/without Geometrical Improvement in Km. 322/0 to 329/0 of NH-22 (New NH-05) in the State of Himachal Pradesh. Petitioner is Contractor by profession.

3. An FIR bearing No. 22, dated 01.04.2019, was registered at Police Station Bhawanagar, District Kinnaur, H.P. at 7.40 P.M., at the instance of one Inder Dass. It was recorded in the FIR that on 01.04.2019, complainant Inder Dass was on his way from Bhawanagar to Nichar in his personal car. He reached near place Latuksha at about 3.00 P.M and had to stop his vehicle as the widening work of the road by Amit Singla Company was in progress and many persons with their vehicles were waiting for road to open. A poclain machine was at work to clear the road for traffic. In the meanwhile, a person named Ved Prakash alighted from Vehicle No. HP-41A-0007, which was parked adjacent to the vehicle of the complainant, and after waiting for some time, Ved Prakash went towards poclain machine on the pretext that he would evaluate the situation. Ved Prakash reached near poclain machine. Dust was in the air and when the dust settled, it was noticed that operator of poclain machine was lifting Ved Prakash, who had fallen on ground and had received injury on stomach. Ved Prakash had become unconscious due to grievous injury. Ramesh Kumar, who was another occupant of the car from which Ved Prakash had alighted also came on spot. Ved Prakash was taken to Bhawanagar Hospital. It was alleged that the accident had taken place due to negligence of the operator of poclain machine and the Supervisor of Amit Singla company.

4. Police carried out the investigation and found that Fateh Ram was operating the poclain machine at the time of accident and Sanjeev Kumar was supervising the work on behalf of the contractor. Police found that Fateh Ram did not possess licence to operate the poclain machine. In fact, one, Happy was the operator of the machine who had valid licence, but was not available on spot at the time of accident. It was also discovered during investigation that poclain machine belonged to one Narender Kumar, who had given the said machine on hire to Amit Singla for operation. As per terms of the agreement between Narender Kumar and Amit Singla, operator was to be provided by owner of the machine.

5. On completion of investigation, the investigating agency presented report under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short “Cr.P.C.”), recommending prosecution against Fateh Ram, Sanjeev Kumar and petitioner (Amit Singla) under Sections 336, 337, 304-A of the IPC and Sections 180 and 181 of the Motor Vehicles Act. It was alleged that firstly, poclain machine was being operated by a person who did not have licence to operate the machine and secondly no preventive steps had been taken on spot to stop the persons from approaching the area of operation of poclain machine.

6. I have heard Mr. Sharwan Dogra, Senior Advocate with Shri Pranay Pratap Singh, Advocate, for the petitioner and Mr. Desh Raj Thakur, learned Additional Advocate General for the respondent/State and have also gone through the record carefully.

7. Shri Sharwan Dogra, learned Senior Advocate has contended that admittedly petitioner was not present on spot at the time of accident. As per him, in absence