Only the Director of the State Vigilance Bureau or an administratively subordinate officer may initiate proceedings under Section 182 IPC; any action initiated otherwise is void ab initio.

JUDGMENT :

Yashvir Singh Rathor, J.

1. The present petition has been instituted under Section 482 of Cr.P.C. for quashing of Kalandra bearing No.1818 dated 16.07.2018 under Section 182 of IPC at Police Station State Vigilance Bureau, Karnal (Annexure P-1) and all other consequential proceedings emanating therefrom.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner as well as learned State counsel have been heard and material on file has been perused.

3. The case of petitioner is that he owned a shop at Karnal and has two registered firms namely Jai Ambey Trading Company and Raghav Traders with TIN Nos. 06952231451 and 06852238102 respectively. On 20.06.2017, at about 2:20 PM, a jeep of Sales Tax Department came at his shop from which Pawan Kumar Sharma, Inspector along with Satish Kumar Gupta alighted and they entered the shop and started getting hold of all the account books while AETO Deepak Dutta remained seated in the jeep. In lieu of returning temporary bills (Kacha Bills), they demanded Rs.2,00,000/- from the petitioner and threatened to produce the documents before DETC, in case the amount of Rs.2,00,000/- was not paid. Finally, a sum of Rs.1,60,000/- was demanded and he handed over Rs.1,20,000/- to the driver namely Rakesh Rathi while the other two persons namely Pawan Kumar Sharma and Satish Kumar Gupta went and sat in the jeep. Rest of the amount of Rs.40,000/- was handed over to the person sent by Satish Kumar Gupta and Pawan Kumar Sharma at Devi Lal Chowk at 6:00 PM. He was also threatened that in case the payment is not made, a complaint will be lodged against him. Thereafter, petitioner filed a complaint before Director, Haryana State Vigilance Bureau, Karnal on 20.06.2017 itself and the matter was investigated but it was wrongly concluded that Satish Kumar Gupta, Inspector, Sales Tax Department, Karnal or any other officer/employee present during the checking had not received any amount or bribe, even though the act of taking bribe was captured in the CCTV footage. The CCTV footage provided by petitioner along with the complaint was not given any consideration by the investigating agency and in order to save the officials, the State Vigilance Bureau, filed a Kalandra against the petitioner through Superintendent of Police, State Vigilance Bureau, Karnal. It is submitted that Shyam Lal, Superintendent of Police, State Vigilance Bureau, Karnal has got no authority to present Kalandra in view of bar contained in Section 195 Cr.P.C., as only Director, State Vigilance Bureau or any other officer to whom he is administratively subordinate can institute the Kalandra/complaint. After presentation of the said Kalandra, learned Magistrate wrongly took cognizance of the same vide order dated 18.05.2020 ignoring the provisions contained in Cr.P.C. and summoned the petitioner to face the trial. It is further alleged that during the course of investigation, it was nowhere proved that petitioner had intentionally given wrong information in his complaint whereas intention is one of the most important ingredients of the offence under Section 182 IPC . No offence under is made out against the petitioner and it has been prayed that the Kalandra bearing No.1818 dated 16.07.2018 and all other consequential proceedings emanating therefrom are illegal and abuse of process of law and the same be quashed.

4. Reply dated 04.10.2023 by way of affidavit of Shri Narender Kumar, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Anti Corruption Bureau, Karnal Range, Karnal has been filed by the State and learned State counsel has opposed the petition. Although, it has been admitted that the petitioner had filed a complaint against officials of Sales Tax Department, but it has been denied that they