H.C. Kantharaj and Others vs State of Karnataka

V. Jagannathan, J.—This petition is disposed of finally after hearing learned senior counsel Sri. A.K. Subbiah for the Petitioners and Sri. S. Rajendra Reddy for the Respondent-Lokayukta and also learned Government Pleader for Respondent No. 1.

The Petitioners seek quashing of the FIR registered in F.I.R. 2/09 of Lokayuktha police station, Madikeri for the offences under Sections 7, 13(1)(c) , 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Sections 420, 468, 471 r/w 120B of the IPC.

The facts necessary for the purpose of this order in brief are that, a complaint was lodged by one Vazeer Ali Khan, Police Inspector who had camped at Thithimathi where the auction of Government and private timber was held on 8.10.2009 from 10.00 a.m. onwards. In the complaint that was lodged by the aforesaid Inspector of Police to the Lokayuktha police. it was stated that the entire auction process was not properly conducted and many of the lots were nor called for auction and were skipped and some of the skipped logs were reserved for Sri. Alexander, ACF, Sri. Kariyappa, ACF and Sri. Muthanna, RFO and for some other persons, and even the rate fixed for the lots were also disclosed before the bid started and the 1st Petitioner herein being the DCF joined the bidding process at 12.30 p.m. and apart from this, the officers viz. DCF, AC Fs and other forest officers, after the bidding was over, also had negotiations with the timber merchants and demanded and accepted illegal gratification apart from tampering with the records of the Government for the purpose of monetary benefit. This is the gist of the complaint lodged and based on the said complaint, FIR was registered against the Petitioners herein.

Submission of the learned senior counsel for the Petitioners is that, a plain reading of the complaint would not make necessary ingredients of the alleged offences and moreover, offences under the Prevention of the Corruption Act cannot be made out, insofar as the offences under the IPC are concerned, if at all there is any irregularity in conducting the auction, that would be a matter to be dealt with in accordance with the auction procedure and therefore the complaint does not disclose the commission of any of the alleged offences by the Petitioners and moreover, if some of the lots were skipped, that does not mean that the proper procedure was not followed in conducting the auction. Under these circumstances, the FIR of the Petitioners cannot be sustained in law and needs to be quashed.

Submission of Sri. Rajendra Reddy for the Respondent No. 2 Lokayuktha is that, the records reveal the other side of the story, in the sense, the persons to whom the skipped lots were given were the close relatives of the aforementioned forest officials who are the Petitioners herein and one of the auction purchasers was the wife of the ACF and her name is Leela and wives of forest officials also were the beneficiaries and apart from that, the receipts do not indicate any cash being paid when the lots were sold in favour of one Leela and in other instances the receipt did not even bear any signature and apart from that, the documents also reveal that from the 1st Petitioner Rs. 27.500/- was recovered and from 2nd Petitioner Rs. 8,700/- was taken out from his pant pocket and Rs. 14,440/- was the amount that was found in the pant pocket of the 3rd Petitioner. The 4th Petitioner was found in possession of Rs. 99,000/-and finally Rs. 1 lakh was found in possession of the 5th Petitioner and that all these amounts are nothing but the bribe amount received by the Petitioners from the timber merchants. In view of the documents collected so far, there is prima facie case against the Petitioners in respect of the offences that are alleged against them. Tampering of the record is also indicated by the document dated 8.10.09 where in respect of auction sale and in respect of many of the items, there is tampering of the amount subsequent to the auction.

In the face of the material that is collected so far and investigation being still in progress, the question of quashing the FIR does not arise.

Having thus heard both sides and after perusing the material placed by the learned Counsel for the Lokayuktha, I am of the view that the complaint allegations do indicate necessary ingredients of the offences alleged being present and though submission was made by the learned senior counsel for the Petitioners that the complaint does not contain all the details which were referred to by the learned Counsel for the Lokayuktha, as rightly submitted by the learned Counsel for the Lokayuktha, FIR is not an encyclopedia to contain every minute details. As the Apex Court has held, while dealing with the scope of Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure, where the complaint allegations makes out prima facie case as all the necessary ingredients being made out, scope of interference by this Court in such cases u/s 482 Code of Criminal Procedure is very much limited.

For the above reasons the petition is rejected.