Order

14/01/2025

1. The petitioner has made challenge to the very lodging of the FIR No.271-53 dated 24.03.2023 registered at Forest Department, Rajasthan for the offence under Sections 2, 26 & 52 of the Indian Forest Act.

2. I have heard counsel for the parties and gone through the niceties of the matter.

3. The judgment passed in SB Civil Writ Petition No.10774/2015 along with batch of petitions attached to it, making it clear that the Khasra numbers from which the woods alleged to have cut down belongs to propriety rights/khatedari of the petitioner. The prosecutor is not able to rebut the fact that land belongs to the petitioner.

3. Besides the above crime report is lodged for the offence under Sections 2, 26 and 52 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Section 2 is about descriptions and interpretation of clauses made in the Forest Act; Section 26 describes prohibited acts in the forest and Section 52 envisages regarding seizure of property liable to confiscation. The penalty clause under Section 42 of the Indian Forest Act as per which the state government may by such rules prescribed as penalty in contravention thereof, imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or fine which may extend to five hundred rupees. As a matter of fact, if in any wildest of imagination any offence was committed then the alleged offence do not contain maximum punishment of more than 6 months. The Indian Forest Act do not make provision as to whether the offences under this Act would be a cognizable offence or non- cognizable offence. For the purpose of above, the first Schedule of the Central Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure can be used to throw light on the legal position. It provides information regarding classification of the offences as to whether the offences are bailable or non-bailable or whether cognizable or non-cognizable. Part II of the first Schedule makes a provision regarding classification of the offences against other laws which include the Indian Forest Act, 1927. If an offence is punishable with imprisonment for less than 3 years or with fine only then it would be a non-cognizable offence.

3.1. Section 154 of the Cr.P.C. makes it abundantly clear that an information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence can only be reduced to writing by the SHO. The same analogy can be adopted here.

3.2. Section 155 of the Cr.P.C. envisages that no police officer shall investigate a non-cognisable case without the order of a Magistrate having power to try such case or commit the case for trial. The police officer or the officers of the forest are not empowered to register an information pertaining to non- cognizable offence. They are supposed to rather belonged to move a complaint before the judicial Magistrate having jurisdiction over the local area within the limits of the offence was committed. Ex facie, the act of the respondent in lodging the FIR against the petitioner and making efforts to arrest him are against the mandate of law. No statutory provision allows the respondent to act in a manner as the offence is a cognizable or a non-bailable offence.

4. In view of the above, the land pertains to the Khatedari of a private individual and the fact that one Kalu Lal had assigned the work to the petitioner who occupies a JCB of the petitioner No.2, who happens to be driver of that JCB and those were given a contact by the Khatedar Kalu Lal to clean the land cannot be held responsible for any criminal act, therefore, petition deserves to be accepted.

5. Accordingly, the instant Misc. Petition is allowed. The FIR No.271-53 dated 24.03.2023 registered at Forest Department, and all consequential proceeding pursuant thereto qua the petitioner is hereby quashed and set aside.

6. The stay petition stands disposed of.

(FARJAND ALI),J

8-Mamta/-