Merkandikar Vasudev , Vasu v. The State Of A.P

HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE A. SHANKAR NARAYANA CRIMINAL PETITION No.2195 OF 2017 ORDER:

The petitioner made a request to exercise the inherent power under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (for short, 'the Code') to quash the First Information Report in Crime No.124 of 2016 of East Police Station, Tirupati, Chittoor District. 2.

The petitioner is arraigned as accused No.11, working as Passport Officer. He alleged to have committed the offences punishable under Sections 417, 420, 465, 466, 468, 471 & 120-B of I.P.C. read with Section 34 of I.P.C.

3.

Heard Sri K.G. Krishna Murthy, learned Senior Counsel, representing Sri K. Ramamohan, the learned counsel for the petitioner; and the learned Assistant Public Prosecutor for the State of Andhra Pradesh.

4.

Before referring to the submissions made by the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner and the learned Assistant Public Prosecutor for the State of Andhra Pradesh, it would be apt to refer to the allegations contained in the complaint.

5.

Accused Nos.1 to 10 have been running Travel Agencies, which include International Travel Services. When the East Police Station, Tirupati, on credible information, conducted raids on the offices of Travel Agencies thereat, found that they are indulging in

creating fake documents and found fake attestation of employment contracts, computer peripherals, printers and blank Non-Judicial Stamp Papers. Some of the accused persons have made confessions leading to seizure of the incriminating documents and all the accused persons, except the present petitioner, were arrested. Having recorded their Confessional and Recovery Panchanamas, send them for judicial remand. It is unnecessary at this stage to go into minute details as to how many number of Non-Judicial empty Stamp Papers and other documents were seized, which were already written and notarized, but with blanks so as to fill them as and when customers would come with particulars and thus fabricating the documents with forged signatures of Consular Officer, Embassy of India and Kuwait along with Rubber Stamps, which details have been finding place in the Case Diary. 6.

The confessional statement of accused No.1 - Sanivarapu Ajay Kumar Reddy, who is the partner of J.K. Travels, located in Raghavendra Nagar, Tirupati, would unfold the complicity of the present petitioner. He was arrested on 10.12.2016 at 9.00 a.m. at Tirupati and his Confessional Statement was also recorded in the presence of mediators and sent him for judicial remand. The Remand Case Diary relating to Accused Nos.1 to 10 would contain the statement of fact that the present petitioner who was working in Tirupati Employment Office has been cooperating as per the Confessional Statement made by the 1st accused and even the other accused persons whose confessional statements were recorded and

recoveries were effected, said to have also spoken on the same lines. Thus, the complicity of the petitioner in the commission of the alleged offences is shown. However, neither the petitioner nor the prosecution did file the confessional statement of accused No.1, but, however, the fact that the petitioner's complicity was spoken to cannot be excluded in view of the statement of fact mentioned in the Remand Case Diary relating to accused Nos.1 to 10 and even the police effecting arrest of the petitioner and sending him for judicial remand alleging that the petitioner has committed the offences afore mentioned.

7.

The learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner raised various submissions. One of the main submissions has been that the petitioner has no scope at all to favour any person or for that matter any Travel Agency. He would assign two main reasons. The first is, by virtue of the duties assigned to the petitioner, he would be sitting at Granting Officers Counter (Counter-C), which is preceded by Verification and Scrutiny done by three more counters, and then only reaches the petitioner ruling out any contacts either with the Travel Agency personnel or the persons who intend to get Passport. 8.

The learned Senior Counsel, in the direction of apprising this Court, placed the Circular dated 28.08.2015 issued by the Regional Passport Officer in Ref. No.Hyd/Passport Control Room/31/2015. The said Circular emanates on the complaints made by the general public that Passport Applications were being processed without any

uniform procedure causing problems particularly, wherein one application is accepted by one official and another application is rejected by another official giving rise to arguments and wasting lot of valuable time of the applicants as well as the officials and since it became imperative to develop common procedure to be followed in all PSKs under his office, Regional Passport Officer issued the said Circular. As could be seen from the Circular and apprised by the learned Senior Counsel, the first counter is captioned as 'Pre-Verification Counters' and relevant details have been shown as to what would be done while processing an application by the said counter. Likewise, second counter is shown as 'Processing Counters' (Counter-A), third counter is shown as 'Verification Officers Counters' (Counter-B).

Thereafter, 'Granting Officers Counters' (Counter-C) is shown. Since the petitioner is working as Granting Officer, he sits in the said counter and the duties of Granting Officers Counters for better appreciation are extracted, which are as follows: "IV.

1. Granting officers should check index/PAC thoroughly.

2. Granting officers should select correct PV mode.

3. The Officers working as Granting Officers are belonging to the rank of Superintendent and above. As per the sub chapter 11 of Chapter 4 of the Passport Manual 2010 "in addition to the Officers in the CPV Division in the Ministry of External Affairs, officers from the level of Superintendents in Passport offices and Consular Officers in the Missions abroad, have been notified as Passport Issuing Authorities under the Passport Act/Rules." Thus, the Granting Officers are

required to familiar with the procedures and rules contained in the Passport Manual, 2010. Wherever procedure or rules or information as amended from time to time is not available to take a decision across the table, those cases ONLY too be escalated to head of the PSK for approval or escalation to Passport Back Office.

4. Granting Officers can terminate the token wherever it needs to be terminated."

9.

It is needless to mention how an application is processed through various counters as the procedure has been clearly indicated in the said Circular, Granting Officers are vested with power to terminate the token wherever token needs to be terminated, they belong to rank of Superintendent and obligated with duty to check index/PAC thoroughly, should select correct PV mode and then they would be sending it to head of the PSK. Learned Senior Counsel has also submitted the relevant details of functions of each Counter. Therefore, according to him, it is difficult for the petitioner to identify the person whose application comes before him and basing on the confession of co-accused nothing is recovered from the petitioner in the direction of incriminating material, as could be seen from the remand case diary, and, therefore, either investigation or prosecution of the petitioner would clearly amount to abuse of process of law. 10.

The next submission of the learned Senior Counsel is that every Passport Officer would be working only for three months in that particular Passport Office and he would be invariably shifted to another office after completion of three months period and that has

been the reason the Passport Officers would not come into contact with any person or Travel Agency nor would develop any vested interest. Basing on these submissions, he requests the Court to quash the First Information Report.

11.

The learned Senior Counsel has also placed reliance on decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court:

(1) State of Haryana v. Ch. Bhajan Lal1

(2) Alpic Finance Limited v. P. Sadasivam2

(3) B. Vasudeva Chary v. K. Mohan Reddy3

(4) V. Ramesh Babu v. State of Andhra Pradesh4 12.

Of course, the learned Senior Counsel would submit that in all these decisions well settled propositions have been either laid down or referred to.

13.

The learned Assistant Public Prosecutor for the State of Andhra Pradesh would submit, the very fact that the confessional statement of accused No.1 would bring out the complicity of the present petitioner extending cooperation in obtaining the passport is sufficient even at this stage to hold that there are prima facie allegations making out commission of cognizable offence by the petitioner. Therefore, he requests to reject the prayer for quashment. He would submit that the Travel Agencies conspiring with the petitioner indulging in scams of 1 1992 Supp (1) SCC 335 2 (2001) 3 SCC 513 3 2013 (1) ALD (Cri) 659 4 2013 (2) ALD (Cri.) 731 (AP)

fabricating the documents and also using them as genuine documents. He has referred to certain details which are unnecessary at this stage to elaborate.

14.

The short question that arises for consideration is whether confession of a co-accused can be relied on, or, has to be brushed aside at this stage, to accede to the request of the petitioner. The answer is certainly - 'NO'.

15.

The confession of co-accused cannot be termed as 'inadmissible'. It is unnecessary to enter into the evidentiary rule as the law is well settled on the said aspect, which can be gone into at an appropriate stage. Suffice it to hold at this stage that mere fact that the petitioner was working only for three months in Passport Office and would not develop any acquaintance with the Travel Agency is not a ground to view that continuation of investigation would amount to abuse of process of law.

16.

The rulings relied on by the learned counsel for the petitioner would not assist the petitioner to accede to his request of quashment of First Information Report.

17.

It is no doubt true that the petitioner would be sitting in Granting Officers Counter, but, that does not in any way helpful at this stage to hold that he would be just working mechanically and sending it to the head of PSK. The duties have been mentioned in the above, and he has even power to terminate the application. In such an

event, it is premature at this stage to hold that there is no material to connect the petitioner with his complicity in the commission of the offences alleged against him. The confession of co-accused i.e., the accused No.1 cannot be brushed aside at this stage, which has to be tested during trial in accordance with evidentiary rule. Therefore, the submission of the learned counsel that there is no prima facie material to proceed with the investigation cannot be accepted. 18.

Hence, the Criminal Petition is dismissed.

As a sequel thereto, Miscellaneous Petitions, if any, pending in the Criminal Petition shall stand closed.

__________________________ A. SHANKAR NARAYANA, J Date:05.06.2017.

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