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Judgment
J.B. Garg, J.
Petitioner No. Ramesh Chand is a Sub Inspector of Haryana Police, Petitioner No. 2 Jagdish is a constable and petitioner No. 3 Ashok Kumar is a driver and posted in the Motor Mobile Police Hissar. They have made this petition for quashing of the FIR No. 245 date 1991992 registered under Section 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 at Police Station Sadar, Jind.
Briefly the story is that Shri Pritam Singh, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Jind while on patrol duty received a secret information that one Thanedar and two Constables were checking vehicles and collecting bribe on JindSafidon Road in a jeep. He went ahead and apprehended Ramesh Chand, Sub Inspector and his two companions collecting illegal gratification from the truck drivers. The Investigating Officer also noticed that Ramesh Chand, SubInspector, did not coopt the General Manager, Haryana Roadways which he required to associate according to the tour programme nor could give any explanation for a total sum of Rs. 3420/ recovered from his possession. A recovery memo of various currency notes was prepared.
In para No. 6 of the petition a plea has been taken up that petitioner No. 1 was carrying the amount for purchase of articles for the house of his brother and a list of articles was shown to the Deputy Superintendent of Police.
In reply, the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Jind has mentioned that no such list of articles to be purchased was shown by the accused. Besides this, the petitioner No. 1 was duty bound to declare his personal cash before proceeding for the purpose of checking but he did not do so. It has also been mentioned in this reply that statements of the witnesses from whom the illegal gratification was collected and the particulars of the various vehicles find mention in the proceedings conducted.
The learned counsel for the petitioners has argued that there was no evidence that there was particular demand of illegal gratification by any of the accused or that an offer of the money was specifically made and accepted by the accused. This aspect is to be seen during the course of trial.
The learned counsel for the petitioners has referred to Teja Singh v. The State of Punjab, 1984(1) CLR 281 and argued that the alleged illegal gratification was never demanded by any of the accused. This shall be a question of fact which shall be looked into during the course of trial. Attention has also been invited to Darshan Singh v. The State of Punjab, 1988(2) RCR 299 , wherein also, it was disputed whether the demand of illegal gratification was ever made by Patwari? In both the aforesaid cases, the demand was not established for want of evidence. Thus it shall again be a question of fact which the Deputy Superintendent of Police and other witnesses shall be required to establish in the case in Land.
The learned counsel for the petitioner has, at last, argued that requirement of Rule 16.38 of the Punjab Rules, 1934 has not been fulfilled. This plea has not been taken in this petition for quashing. At any rate this aspect shall be looked into at the appropriate stage at the time of presentation of Challan and framing the charge etc.
The conclusion is that the present petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has no merit and is hereby dismissed.