The court emphasized the necessity for clear, prima facie evidence of direct involvement in criminal acts for proceeding with charges against the accused.

JUDGMENT :

S.S. Mishra, J.

1.The present proceedings have been drawn invoking inherent jurisdiction of this Court under section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1974 (Cr.P.C) with the prayer to quash the order dated 05.06.2023 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Khurda against the petitioner for having taken cognizance of offences under Sections 341 /294/506 of the IPC on the charge-sheet dated 26.05.2023 in C.T Case No.330 of 2022.

2. BRIEF FACTUAL BACKGROUND OF THE CASE.

The relevant admitted facts sans unnecessary details for the purpose of deciding present petition are discussed herein below:

One Complainant, namely, Ganesh Malik lodged FIR, i.e., Infocity P.S. Case No.306 of 2022 registered under Sections 341 /323/294/307/427/506/34 of the IPC read with Section 3(1)(r)(s) & 3(2)(va) of the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (for short “the SC & ST Act”) against Malaya Panigrahi (Accused No.1) and Sanjay Patra (Accused No.2). The complainant, in the FIR has alleged that on 01.11.2022 at 11:30 AM, while he along with other persons and some Security Guards of the Developer were removing some construction material from the Z-1 Society, Accused Nos. 1 & 2 along with Security Guards of RWA of Z-1 Society came to the spot and started hurling filthy abuses indicating his caste and threatened to kill him, if he does not leave the spot. When the complainant tried to justify his action stating that he was removing the construction material on instructions of the Developer, the accused persons attacked him with iron rods, wooden planks and also tried to break the tractor, which the complainant had brought to remove the construction materials. During the scuffle, the complainant received injuries on his person for which he was taken to hospital.

It is undisputed that neither the name of the petitioner was mentioned in the FIR nor any allegations have been made against him in the FIR. The petitioner was nowhere in the picture at the time of incident. The FIR lodged by the complainant was registered at 10:04 P.M. on the same day.

One counter FIR being Infocity P.S. Case No.307 of 2022 was also lodged by the office bearer of the RWA against the builder of the society along with four other persons under Sections 294 / 323/ 379/ 506/34 of IPC at about 22.28 hrs on the same day.

After the lodging of the Infocity P.S. Case No.306 of 2022 on the same day the statement of the complainant was recorded by the Investigating Officer of the case, wherein the complainant for the first time stated that latter in the evening Bidhu Bhushan Nayak, i.e., the petitioner herein arrived and abused the Builder Tapan Mohanty and threatened that he would not allow the Builder to work there and he would kill anyone, who came to the Society in that regard, because of which they (complainant) were in a state of fear. The complainant in his statement further disclosed that while they were on their way to report the matter to the police station, the petitioner threatened them on the road in front of the police station and he further stated that before this incident, they had fought with them and threatened them while working.

The petitioner was arrested by the police on the same day and he was later released on bail vide order dated 14.11.2022 passed by the learned Sessions Judge, Khurda.

After completion of the investigation, charge-sheet has been laid down by the police against 11 accused persons including the petitioner under Sections 341 / 323/ 294/ 307/ 427/ 506/34 of the IPC read with Section 3(1)(r)(s) & 3(2)(va) of SC/ST Act. However, charge-sheet has been laid down qua the petitioner under Sections 294 /341/506 of the only. In the charge-sheet, it has been admitted by the prosecution that the ro