A malafide prosecution cannot stand if the alleged misconduct merely arises from supervisory deficiencies lacking substantive evidence of criminal conspiracy.

ORDER :

The petitioner/A1 in Crime No.6 of 2022 had filed this petition seeking to quash the F.I.R., which was registered on the complaint of Inspector of Police, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, Namakkal against the petitioner and two others for offences under Sections 120-B, 409, 468, 471 of I.P.C. and13(2) r/w 13(1)(c) and (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

2. The contention of the learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner is that during the period between October 2017 and June 2018, the petitioner held the post of Manager, Technical Wing, District Survey Office, Collectorate, Namakkal District and A2/Akbar Ali was Sub Inspector of Survey, Kolli Hills, Namakkal District and A3/Madheswari was Head Draftsman, Technical Wing, District Survey Office, Collectorate, Namakkal District. The allegation against the petitioner is that the petitioner along with other two accused conspired and made false entries in the 'A' Registers and Chitta Registers of villages of Kolli Hills Taluk by converting the Tharisu Poramboke land into Patta land and entered the names of private individuals. The petitioner forged the data of the land in S.No.542/3 in Ariyur Nadu Village, facilitating the relatives and friends of the petitioner and other accused to create documents and title over the Government lands.

3. The further contention of the learned Senior Counsel is that the primary allegation against the petitioner is that, petitioner as Manager, Technical Wing for the computer registration of the documents pertaining to villages in Kolli Hills Taluk, failed to monitor the computerization of survey numbers properly, and thereby some of the survey numbers of Government Poramboke lands changed, thereby, facilitating the private persons to create documents, which the petitioner authorised, without any permission and also failed to bring to the notice of higher officials about the forgery committed by other accused. The petitioner holding a responsible post, failed to take proper notice of the deficiencies under her control. For the said allegations, the Director of Survey and Settlement, Chepauk, Chennai, issued a show cause notice in Na.Ka.No.2/00320/2019(1) dated 10.06.2022. Hence, the head of the department found the petitioner committed lack of supervision and nothing more. But the respondent police registered a criminal complaint following the enquiry report, which is not proper. In this case admittedly, the petitioner is not a field officer and her work is only in the District Survey Office at Namakkal. The petitioner had gone by the report submitted by the Inspector of Survey and the Head Draftsman. The petitioner had no reason to doubt the officers of her department at that point of time. Now the same is projected against the petitioner as though the petitioner conspired and committed the offence.

4. He further submitted that on taking into the complaint as a whole it is clear, no offence is made out. Even by the complaint it is seen that 'A' Registers, Chitta Registers of Ariyur Nadu, Selur Nadu, Valavanthi Nadu, Thinnanur Nadu and Valapur Nadu villages of Kolli Hills Taluk, were entrusted to them for the purpose of computerization of data. Later it was found that Ariyur Nadu 'A' Register was tampered and new Survey Nos.1034, 145, 542/3 and 724 assigned and also entered in the name of private individuals. Here the allegation is that classification of the land changed from Sarkar Poramboke to Ryotwari Punjai