The central legal point established in the judgment is that to claim protection under the Judges Protection Act, 1985, the person concerned must show that the cause of action for filing prosecution relates to something done while exercising adjudicatory jurisdiction.

ORDER :

1. This order shall dispose of the petition filed by the petitioners under section 482, Criminal Procedure Code for quashing of the final report bearing No. 143/2012 dated 26-11-2012 whereby the charge-sheet has been filed against the petitioners for having committed offence under section 13(1)(d) and section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 read with sections 109, 409, 420 and 120-B of Indian Penal Code.

2. The proceedings are pending before the learned Special Court (constituted for the Prevention of Corruption Act), Indore as Special Case No. 06/2012. According to the petitioners, it has been submitted that FIR of this case was registered on 24-10-2007 being Crime No. 38/2007 wherein the name of the petitioners were not mentioned but after investigation their name was incorporated as accused persons alleging that they are guilty of committing offence under section 13(1)(d) and section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 read with sections 109, 409, 420 and 120-B of Indian Penal Code.

3. It is submitted that in the final report Annexure P-1, the petitioners have been alleged to have committed the aforesaid offence while discharging their duties as Naib Tehsildar, Tappa Gautampura, Tehsil-Depalpur, District Indore. Besides submitting that petitioners have no nexus with the aforesaid crime, it is also submitted that the services of the petitioners are regulated by the Revenue Department, whereas the sanction has been granted by the Law Department solely on the ground that there is delay in discharging the duties on the part of the petitioners, even though Revenue Authorities strongly opposed to grant sanction.

4. Besides taking the ground of delay, the learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioners also submitted that no cognizance should have been taken of RRC against the petitioners who were acting as judicial officers, in terms of section 31 of the M.P. Land Revenue Code 1959. It is also submitted that the petitioners could not be penalised for the acts done while exercising judicial power in terms of the provisions of Judges Protection Act, 1985. It is also submitted that the fault and guilt lies on the officers of the M.P. Khadi Gramodyog who without any initial verification sanctioned loan to the ineligible persons and therefore the story narrated by the respondent against the petitioners is imaginary, hypothetical and merely based on presumption because it is the officials belonging to the M.P. Khadi Gramodyog who were negligent in discharging their duties and who did not contact the Revenue authorities regularly for recovery of the loan. The culpability is further aggravated considering the fact that under the provisions of section 147 of the Code, they are entrusted with the power of Tehsildar for recovery of margin money of loan from any defaulter. Even though number of grounds have been taken in the petition, learned senior counsel for the petitioners primarily argued before us two points in support of this petition:

(1) The sanction granted in this case by Law department was not tenable inasmuch as the Revenue department controls the service conditions of the petitioners to grant sanction.

(2) It has been argued that the petitioners being Tehsildar were admittedly officers and were performing the judicial function and therefore they should be protected under the Judges Protection Act.

5. As far as the question of grant of sanction by the Law department is concerned, the petitioners had filed a petition under section 482, Criminal Procedure Code earlier also before this Court vide M. Cr. C. No. 532/2013 which has been dismissed with liberty to file fresh petition, but debarring the petitioners from raising the question of sanction. The order Annexure P-33 is reproduced hereunder:-

“Shri Piyush Mathur, learned senior counsel with Shri Anshuman Shrivastava, learned counsel for the petitioner. Shri Deepak Rawal, learned Govt. Advocate for the respondent Nos. 1 and 3. Shri Arvind Gokhale