THE HON’BLE SMT. JUSTICE TIRUMALA DEVI EADA CRIMINAL PETITION No.6207 OF 2025

ORDER:

This Criminal Petition is filed by the petitioners – accused seeking to quash the proceedings in C.C.No.4681 of 2022 on the file of the learned II Additional Junior Civil Judge-cum-II Additional Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Warangal, registered for the offences under Section 304-A of the Indian Penal Code (for short “IPC”).

2. Heard the submissions of Sri M.V. Rama Rao, learned counsel for the petitioners and the Sri Jithender Rao Veeramalla, learned Additional Public Prosecutor for respondent No.1 – State.

3. The learned petitioners counsel has submitted that the petitioners herein are accused Nos.3 and 4 and are the Employees of NPDCL and that the allegations under Section 304-A do not attract against these petitioners who have performed their routine official duties, but for that they are not concerned with the alleged incident of death of the victim. He therefore, prayed to quash the proceedings against the petitioners.

4. The learned Assistant Public Prosecutor has submitted to pass appropriate orders.

5. Perused the record.

6. It reveals that the petitioners are arrayed as accused Nos.3 and 4 and they are the Assistant Engineer and ADE Protection of TGMPDCL. The allegations in the complaint point out that the husband of the de-facto complainant was working in Grampanchayat as Electrician and that on the alleged date of incident, her husband left the house on being called by a Line-men to attend to a repair work of a transformer, after which she received a phone call that her husband sustained electric shock and fell down from the transformer, as a result he sustained burn injuries and died.

7. Section 304-A of the IPC is extracted hereunder for the sake of reference”-

Causing death by negligence.—Whoever causes the death of any person by doing any rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.

8. To attract the said offence, the persons must have committed any rash and negligent Act, which resulted in the death of the person.

9. The learned petitioner counsel relied upon Yuvraj Laxmilal Kanther & Another Vs. State of Maharashtra, LawSuit (SC) 349. In the said case the allegations were under Section 304 Part II of IPC. The work of decoration on front side of the shop was undertaken by two employees of the appellant and they were provided with an Iron Ladder. While they were working on the sign board which was approximately at a height of 12 feet from the ground level, they were struck by electricity and as a result, they got electrocuted and fell down, sustained injuries and died. The allegations were leveled under Section 304-II of IPC against the owners who were the appellants. It was held in the said case that it cannot be said that the appellants had knowledge that by asking the two deceased- employees to work on the sign board as a part of decoration work and that such an act was likely to cause death of the two deceased employees. As such, no prima-facie case can be said to have been made out against the appellants. If that be so, the subsequent requirement of having knowledge that the act was likely to cause the death, but not having any intention to cause death would become irrelevant. With the said observations, the proceedings against the appellants were quashed.

10. The above cited decision squarely applies to the case on hand. In the present case the two petitioners are the employees i.e., the petitioner No.1 working as the Engineer in the IT Wing and petitioner No.2 working as ADE Protection. They were not even in direct contact with the victim herein and the complaint itself discloses that he left the house on being called by one Hariyan, linemen of their village and while attending to his duties he died due to electric shock. No rash and negligent act can be attributed to the petitioners her