The main legal point established in the judgment is that the provisions of Section 311, 165, and 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure do not provide for the impleadment of a person who is not likely to be affected by the conclusion of the trial. The court emphasized the discretionary and extraordinary nature of the power under Section 319 and its inapplicability to impleadment.

JUDGMENT :

(Sharad Kumar Sharma, J.)

1. It is in the present pending C-482 application, whereby the present applicant has questioned the propriety of Criminal Case No. 346 of 2018, “State of Uttarakhand Vs. Janak Singh”, whereby he has been summoned to be tried for the offences under Section 420, 467, 468 and 471 of I.P.C., which is as a consequence of registration of the FIR No. 03 of 2018, as it was got registered on 20.02.2018.

2. It’s was that during the pendency of this C-482 application, one, Mr. Trepan Singh Rana, has sought himself to be impleaded in C-482 application by filing an Impleadment Application No. 4293 of 2020.

3. The learned counsel for the applicant-Trepan Singh Rana, in order to justify his impleadment, has submitted that impleadment would be a concept, which is available to be considered under the criminal law, when the Court are exercising its inherent powers under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, or even otherwise, there cannot be any doubt with regards to the ambit of the exercise of powers by the Court under Section 482, for the purposes of impleadment, only in relation to those persons who are likely to be affected by the outcome of the judgment, which may be rendered in criminal proceedings as against the accused person, who is being tried for the alleged offence.

4. The term ‘impleadment’ under the legal dictionary had defined that a person who has got a right to sue or prosecute a person by a course of law, he may be made as a party to the proceedings. In a Black’s Law Dictionary, 6th Edition, the ‘impleadment’ means to bring (someone) into a suit as a new party, against whom there is an acquisition or a right which is to be adjudicated. The relevant definition of the Black Dictionary is extracted here under:

“1. To bring (someone) into a law suit; esp., to bring (a new party) into the action. Cf. Interplead.

2. To bring an action against; to accuse.”

5. In Law Lexicon, in its Second Edition of 1997 as published by Y.V. Chandrachud, has yet again dealt with the definition as to what would the term “implead”, means, it’s a right to sue or to prosecute by course of law and the said definition has been extracted from Tomlins Law Dictionary. In fact it literally means to make one, a party to an action or a suit, that means to sue or prosecute a person by a course of law, the relevant definition is extracted here under:

“to sue or prosecute a person by course of law [s.32A, Drugs and Cosmetics Act]; to make a party [s. 114, Trade and Merchandise Marks Act]”.

6. Before answering the question raised by the learned counsel for the applicant to the impleadment application, a detailed scrutiny of the FIR itself becomes necessary to be dealt with by this Court, and it is being made exclusively for the purposes, as to how and in what chronology, the things have proceeded in order to direct the registration of the FIR being, being ultimately the FIR being no. 03 of 2018 dated 20.02.2018.

7. On reading the FIR, the following inferences could be drawn:-

i. That in relation to the work called as ‘Mori Naitwad Sankri Motor Road’ that is State Highway No. 48 from kilometre 1 to 26, whereby the contract was executed for metalling the road. A contract is said to have been executed in favour of the present applicant.

ii. Alleging thereto was in relation to a certain discrepancy in performance of the work and being dissatisfied with the nature of the work performed by the present applicant, a complaint was filed by “Rawai Ekta Manch”.

iii. The “Rawai Ekta Manch”, is said to have agitated a cause on the basis of their self inscribed process of inspection followed by them to assess the quality of work performed by the present applicant and the irregulation has committed by him.

iv. On the basis of the report submitted by the “Rawai Ekta Manch”, it was reported and alleged that the present applicant was instrumental in getting the contract, on the basis of a fraudulent experience certificate and due to which the public