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Judgment
Ujagar Singh, J
1.On a report having been filed u/s 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short, Cr.P.C), the trial court framed a charge against the Petitioner for having submitted medical reimbursement bill dated 25 6 1981 for Rs. 10,684.45 for the treatment of his wife Shmt. Sudarshan Sharma for the period 2.12.1980 to 6,4.1981 at Shri Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Amritsar, in the office of Divisional Railway Manager, Northern Railway, Feroze-pur, his employer, in which he falsely claimed an amount of Rs. 1,933/by deliberately inflating the amounts in various cash memos by making additions/alterations, cutting and over-writings therein in his own hand whereby he was charged for having committed an offence u/s 420 read with Section 511. Indian Penal Code Charges u/s 467 & 468, IPC, were also framed against him for forging certain documents purporting to be valuable securities, i.e., cash memos, the numbers of which are mentioned therein, by inflating the actual amount. He was further charged u/s s 465/471, I.P.C., for dishonestly and fraudulently using those cash memos as genuine. The Petitioner has filed this petition u/s 482, Cr.P.C, for quashing the said charges being an abuse of the process of court.
The case of the Petitioner is that his wife was burnt on 2nd December, 1980, and was referred to Govt. Hospital at Amritsar, by the Railway Medical Authority, where she remained as an indoor patient up to 6th April, 1981, resulting into a huge expenditure on her treatment out of which an amount of Rs. 10,684.45 was verified for reimbursement by the medical authority of that hospital, as also countersigned by the Railway Medical Officer. A claim was submitted by the Petitioner and in support thereof, a Certificate of Essentiality was also appended by the Petitioner. This claim was forwarded by the Station Superintendent, Jammu Tawi to the Divisional Railway Manager, Ferozepur (Respondent No. 2) on 11th July, 1981. Respondent No. 2 assured the Petitioner through communication dated 26th August. 1981, that his claim was under scrutiny and shall be paid in due course. In October, 1981, he was asked by Respondent Mo. 2 to explain the difference in the cost and quantity of the medicines purchased by him to which he replied that it was for the chemist to explain that, and the matter was dropped.
The Petitioner was summoned by Respondent No 1 on 13th October, 1982, in connection with an investigation relating to the medical reimbursement claim in question. However, an application u/s 33(c) (2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, was filed by the Petitioner in the Labour Court at Jalandhar on 12th October, 1982, and Respondent No. 1 was apprised of the same on 13th October, 1982. Respondent No. 1 was also informed about the date of hearing of the application on 15th December, 1982, by the Labour Court. None of the Respondents, however, appeared before the Labour Court on that day, and an award was passed by the Labour Court on 17th December, 1982, for the recovery of the whole amount with the following verdict,-
The sworn testimony of the applicant cannot be disbelieved "which finds Corroboration from copies of correspondence, Annexure B to E. Copy of Annexure C shows that the claim of the applicant was not rejected but was under consideration and this communication was sent by the Railway on 26th August, 1981 to the applicant and much time has passed since then and if the claim of the applicant was false, the same should have been rejected straightaway. I have no hesitation to hold that the applicant has been able to prove his ex parte case for Rs. 10684 45 and the same is allowed.
Respondents No. 1 to 3 challenged the said award through CWP No. 4493/1983 but the same was dismissed by a Division Bench of this Court on September 20, 1983 (Copy attached with this petition).
In the said writ petition, a challenge on the award has been specifically made on the ground that a notice was issued to them u/s 33(c)(2) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, for 15th December, 1982, for filing Written Statement, which reached the concerned Legal Cell but the-Written Statement could not be filed on the date fixed, and for nonappearance of the Respondents herein the Labour Court proceeded Ex parte and recorded the statements of the Petitioner on the first date of hearing in spite of the fact that the date was only for filing the Written Statement
After the filing of the police report, the Petitioner filed Cr. Misc. No 2853-M/1983 for quashing the proceedings before Respondent No. 4 but this petition was dismissed on 2nd November, 1983, with the observations that the matter is yet to be considered whether the charge is to be framed against the Petitioner or not and Petitioner would be well-advised to raise all the questions sought to be raised there before the trial court. The Petitioner than filed an application dated 19th November, 1984, before Respondent No. 4 but the same was rejected on 6th September, 1984, resulting in the framing of the present charges against him.
The Petitioner has argued in person that the matter in substance covered by the present charges is the same as was before the Labour Court, and, therefore, the charge and the proceedings relating thereto are liable to be quashed. On the other hand, learned Counsel for Respondent No. 1 has laid stress that the award of the Labour Court is a judgment in persona and not in rem, and in this situation, the Labour Court awarded is neither admissible nor binding on Respondent No. 4. He has cited various authorities, including Gogan Chander Ghosh v. The Emperor ILR 6 Cal. 247, Raj Kumari Devi v. Bama Sundri Devi ILR 23 Cal 610, M.S. Sheriff Vs. The State of Madras and Others, , AIR 1945 23 (Lahore) , Anil Behari Ghosh Vs. Smt. Latika Bala Dassi and Others, Smt. Satya Vs. Shri Teja Singh, Karam Chand Ganga Prasad and Another Vs. Union of India (UOI) and Others, Major Singh v. State of Punjab 1985 Cri. L.J. 303, in support of his case.
I have considered the respective contentions of the counsel as also the authorities cited at the Bar. The whole controversy arises because of submission of the bill by the Petitioner for the said amount on account of medical expenses incurred on the treatment of his wife. In spite of a notice having been served on Respondents No. 1 to 3, the dispute before the Labour Court was not contested by them, and ultimately the Labour Court passed the said award. Respondents No. 1 to 3 filed the said writ petition against the said award and challenged the same on all possible grounds but it was dismissed So far as the claim for re-imbursement by the Petitioner is concerned, it stands finally adjudicated between the parties, as Respondent No. 2 paid the total amount covered by the award to the Petitioner on 6th February, 1984 The only point contended by counsel for Respondent No 1 is that the prosecution of the Petitioner is not barred by the award inasmuch as the award is at the most a civil court judgment which will not be relevant or admissible before criminal Court, much less binding on it I am unable to agree to the contention raised by the learned Counsel for Respondent No. 1. In Gagan Chander Ghosh''s case (supra), there was a civil suit on the basis of a bond said to have been executed by three Defendants, and the civil court found the signatures of one of them as genuine and those of the remaining two as forged. In this judgment, the civil court directed prosecution of the Plaintiff therein. During the criminal proceedings the judgment of the civil court was considered In appeal, the matter was considered by their Lordships and it was held that "it was not necessary for the Munsiff, in the civil suit, to find out more than that the execution of the bond by the three Defendants was not proved When the Munsiff went further and pronounced the bond a forgery and directed a prosecution it was not a decision on the question of forgery but merely an Opinion which, although he was entitled to give an expression to ought no more to have been put in evidence on the present charge" The matter was considered in this judgment and it was held that beyond the opinion of the Munsiff, there was not sufficient evidence pointing with reasonable certainty to the guilt of the accused, and, therefore, the acquittal was upheld In Shmt. Raj Kumari Devi''s case (supra) it was held per Ghosh, J., that the judgment of the Civil Court would be admissible if the parties are substantially the same and identical, and it was held that the parties in the civil suit were the same in the criminal proceedings because the criminal proceeding was at the instance of one of them, and the main issues between the parties was identical, M.S. Sheriff''s case (supra) relates to the question whether as between civil and criminal proceedings, the criminal matter should be given precedence, and it was held that it was desirable that the criminal proceedings should come to an end before the civil suites allowed to proceed. In M/s. Karam Chand Ganga Parshad''s case (supra), their Lordships of the Supreme Court specifically ruled: -
It is a well-settled principle of law that decisions of the Civil Courts are binding on the criminal courts. The converse is not true
In that case, the question was that the movement of maize had been controlled by the provisions of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, read with Northern Inter Zonal Maize (Movement of Control) Order, 1967, promulgated by the State Government on May 3, 1967. The restrictions on the export of maize by that Order were removed by the State of Haryana in October, 1967, and an announcement was made by the Chief Minister of the State at Karnal on October 11, 1967. The same was publicised through the radio and newspapers. A question was raised by the trial court as to whether the ban on export was lifted by the State Government and if it did lift the ban, was it competent to do so. The further question was if the ban was held to have been validly lifted, the refusal on the pare of the Railways to deliver the maize exported was illegal and the authorities were not competent to forfeit and seize the maize exported, and in this situation the prosecution launched would become unsustainable. A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, after dealing with the matter elaborately, rejected the writ petitions on the sole ground that in view of the pendency of the criminal proceedings before some courts in the
State of West Bengal it was inappropriate for the High Court to pronounce on the question arising for decision in the writ petitions. In accepting the appeal against the judgment of the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, their Lordships of the Supreme Court held that the High Court had seriously erred in coming to that conclusion and it was further held that if the Appellants are able to establish their case that the ban on export of maize from the State of Haryana had been validly lifted, all the proceedings taken against those who exported the maize automatically fall to the ground, as their maintainability depends on the assumption that the exports were made without authority of law. Relying on this authority, Surinder Singh, J., in Major Singh''s case (Supra) held as, under:-
Where the criminal action was initiated in consequence of an F.I.R. and charge-sheet framed against the accused for various offences relating to acts of impersonation, forgery, etc., in spite of following three-tier verdict of civil courts culminating with the dismissal of Regular Second Appeal on the very points which were the subject-matter of charge-sheet in a criminal case, criminal proceedings would be liable to be quashed being an abuse of process of Court. Decisions of Civil Courts are binding on criminal courts.
The last two authorities were cited by learned Counsel for Respondent No. 1 in fairness. In view of decision in M/s Karam Chand Ganga Parshad''s case (supra), the other authorities though gone through need not be discussed.
The facts of the present case are exactly the same as those in Major Singh''s case (supra). The parties before the Labour Court were the same, and they are substantially the same in the present litigation also. Therefore, I hold that once the Labour Court award was given for the entire claim, and the said writ petition challenging the said award having been dismissed, the present proceedings against the Petitioner are barred. Consequently, the charge-sheet and the proceedings being taken thereunder are hereby quashed.