Important Point – Vigilance Organisation has not been able to make out a prima facie case against petitioners.

M.K. Hanjura, J.

Challenge in the petitions on hand is thrown to the Order dated 6th February 2016, passed by the court of learned the Additional Sessions Judge (Special Judge Anticorruption), Anantnag (for brevity the “Trial Court”) directing the framing of the charge against the petitioners under Section 5 (1) (d) read with Section 5 (2) of the J&K Prevention of Corruption Act, 2006 read with Section 120-B RPC, along with consequential criminal proceedings initiated against the petitioners in pursuance thereto in a case FIR no.276 of 2008, on the grounds outlined therein.

2. The case set up by both the petitioners in the instant petitions, is that the respondent Vigilance Organisation on the basis of the information claimed to have been received by it, registered a case FIR no.27 of 2008 on 11th August 2008. Pursuant thereto, the investigation was conducted which culminated into the Final Report as envisaged under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, submitted on 2nd July 2011, by the respondent Vigilance Organisation initially to the court of the learned Special Judge Anticorruption, Kashmir, Srinagar, wherefrom it was transferred to the files of the learned Trial Court for disposal in accordance with law.

3. The petitioner in petition bearing 561-A no.287/2016 states that the Town Planning Organisation, of which the petitioner, at the relevant point of time, was a member holding the position/post of Town Planner, is not the part of the Pahalgam Development Authority and the role of the Town Planning Organisation, a body expert having the expertise in the field of Country/Town Planning, is primordial in the sense that at the request/instance of the Development Authority it draws and provides to the Development Authority the proposed plan in draft to facilitate the job and task of drawing a Master Plan entrusted to the Development authority under the Statute, namely, the Development Act. It is maintained that the petitioner has been roped in merely because he was the part/member of the Team called upon to draw the aforementioned Proposed Plan in Draft. According to the petitioner, the records testify to the fact that all that the petitioner was called upon to do as a member of the Team, was only to draft a report, based on the above proposed Draft Plan. Petitioner also avers that he has been roped in without any warrant, authority or sanction of law and that the allegations as disclosed in the Final Report against the petitioner do not, on the face of them, disclose or make out any case warranting framing of charge against the petitioner under Section 5(1) (d) read with Section 5(2) of the J&K Prevention of the Corruption Act, 2006, and Section 120-B RPC, as directed by the learned Trial Court vide impugned order dated 6th June 2016. It is also pleaded that the preparation / drawing of the Master Plan is a Statutory exercise entrusted to a Statutory Authority called the Development Authority, constituted under Section 3 of the Development Act for an area declared to be a local area and that even the method and manner for preparing/drawing of the Master Plan for a local area is statutorily prescribed. In terms of SRO 118 of 1990 dated 267th March 1990, issued under the Development Act, 1970, the Pahalgam Development Authority was constituted for an area, declared to be the local area for the purposes of the Development Act. It is also contended that by SRO 73 of 2003 dated 6th March 2003, in supersession to SRO 197 of 1992 dated 24th August 1992, the Pahalgam Development Authority came to be reconstituted. The position that emerges from the said SRO, according to the petitioner, is that before preparing any Plan finally and submitting it to the Government for the approval, the Authority is required to prepare a Plan in Draft and publish it by making a copy thereof available for inspection and publishing notice in the prescribed form and manner inviting objections and suggestions from all concerned with resp