Punjab-Haryana High Court
Charan Dass Shorewala vs State Of Haryana on 16 January, 2001
Author: Amar Dutt
Bench: Amar Dutt
JUDGMENT Amar Dutt, J.
1. This order will dispose of Criminal Misc Petitions No. 23051 -M and 26360-M of 2000.
2. The petitioner is seeking anticipatory bail in a case FIR No. 302 dated 9.7.2000 registered against Anil Kumar Shorewala. According to the petitioner, he is a socially and politically eminent person, who has held high political and municipal offices. He was the Member of Legislative Assembly, Haryana from 1972 to 1977 and thereafter was re-elected in the year 1996 on the ticket of Samta Party of which Shri Om Parkash Chautala was the leader. He was expelled from the said party and hadjoined the Haryana Cabinet headed by Shri Bansi Lal and now Shri Om Parkash Chautala has come into power as the leader of the Indian National Lok Dal Party. The police is trying to rope him in the aforementioned case although there is no allegation against him in the FIR.
3. The FIR has been registered on the basis of an affidavit being given by one Ramesh Singh. The complainant, who was B.A. & B.P.Ed. had qualified the examination conducted by the Haryana Government on 10.3.99 for the post of Revenue Patwari. At that time, the petitioner was the Minister in the Haryana Government and his son Anil Kumar Shorewala was getting persons employed after accepting money. The complainant had contacted Anil Kumar Shorewala and in the presence of Ishwar Singh son of Shri Niwas and Shish Pal son of Randhir Singh, Anil Kumar Shorewala had assured the com-
plainant that he would gel him appointed as a patwari in case he pays Rs. 1.5 lacs. Out of this amount, Rs. 65,000/- was paid before 8.4.99 in the presence oflshwar Singh aforesaid and the balance of Rs. 85,000/- was paid in the last week of May, 1999 in the presence of Shish Pal. Despite having received the amount. Anil Kutnar Shorewala had not got him appointed. Hence, the complaint.
4. In Crl. Misc. No. 2350I-M of 2000, notice of motion had been issued to the State primarily on the ground that on the face of it, the FIR did not contain any assertions revealing the complicity of the petitioner in the offence that was alleged to have been committed by his son Anil Kumar Shorewala. During the pendency of this petition, another FIR No. 320 was registered against the petitioner on 1.8.2000 under Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and Section 420 IPC. That FIR was registered on a report made by Shri Ashok Bishnoi, Sub Divisional Magistrate, Kaithal, who had inquired into the allegations of corruption against the petitioner while working as Finance Minister in recruitment of 12 Class IV employees by the District Treasury Officer. This recruitment was conducted by District Treasury Officer after obtaining the approval for filling up five posts of Class IV employees from the Finance Minister i.e. the petitioner. In response to the advertisement made in the local newspaper and the request sent to the Employment Exchange, 332 applications were received and 44 names were sponsored. Interview was conducted on 17.2.99 and 12 persons were selected for these posts. After the grant of approval, three more posts had fallen vacant at Treasury Office, Kaithal and four posts were created by transferring the officials posted at Kaithal. Out of the candidates selected, only one was taken out of the pane! sent by the district Employment Officer and 11 candidates were selected out of all the persons who had responded to the advertisement in the local newspapers. In these circumstances, inferring that the recruitment had been made for extraneous reasons by the District Treasury Officer, Kaithal under pressure, as per the direction of the Finance Minister i.e. the petitioner, Sub Divisional Magistrate had requested for the registration of the case.
5. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties.
6. On behalf of the petitioner, it is submitted that while in Crl. Misc. No. 23501-M of 2000 the FIR does not contain any allegation about the complicity of the petitioner, in the second case i.e. Crl. Misc. No. 26360-M of 2000, an effort has been made to implicate the petitioner merely on account of the fact that he is stated to have sanctioned the filling up of five vacancies. It was further submitted that the petitioner, who was a political ally of the present Chief Minister, has apparently parted ways at the time when he chose to join the Cabinet of Ch. Bansi Lal and this is the reason why an effort is being made by the administration at the behest of the Chief Minister to involve him in this criminal case. Keeping in view the background in which these cases have been registered against the petitioner, it can easily be inferred that it is the result of the political ire gathered by the present Chief Minister against the petitioner on account of his having propped up a political rivalry, which is one of the circumstances. According to the law laid down in Gurbax Singh Sibia v. CBI, AIR 1980 SC 1632, the provisions of Section 438 Cr.P.C. were incorporated in the Code of Criminal Procedure. It was further submitted that in view of this as well as in view of the fact that there is no possibility of the accused absconding from justice or using his influence to stall or interfere with the process of investigation by influencing or coercing the witnesses a case is made out for continuing the concession of interim anticipatory bail which has been granted to the petitioner.
7. Both the applications have been opposed by State on the ground that during the course of investigation of FIR No. 302, it has been revealed that an amount of Rs. 1.5 lacs had been given to the petitioner's son for being passed on to him for ensuring that the petitioner, who was then working as Finance Minister, would influence the selection.
8. In relation to FIR No. 320 what was sought to be highlighted was the manner in which the initial sanction for five posts was increased to 12 posts, which were filled up inspite of the fact that seven of them were not even advertised. It was also submitted that four of these vacancies were created by transferring the persons already posted in District Kaithal and as a matter of fact, one witness has stated that he had approached Anil Kumar Shorewala for cancellation of the transfer while another had stated that her husband had committed suicide on account of this unwarranted transfer. During the preliminary investigation, it was also revealed that 9 candidates have been selected on the asking of the petitioner and, therefore, custodial interrogation of the petitioner would be required to throw light upon the aspects which motivated him to speak in favour of particular candidate as also what had led to the death of Navdeep Shanker. Apart from this, learned Advocate General also submitted that the petitioner has, as on date, properties worth Rs. 1,21,00,000/- for the purchase of which he did not have any apparent source of income and, therefore, it may be necessary to Inquire from him as to from which source he had acquired the assets.
9. 1 have given my thoughtful consideration to the arguments advanced by the learned counsel and perused the material placed before me during the course of arguments. The petitioner in this case has admittedly been functioning in the public life in the State of Haryana at various levels since 1972. It is quite possible that during these years, he might have rubbed a targe number of political opponents in the wrong way and one such incident which is sought to be relied upon is the time when he moved out from Samta Party to support the formation of the Government by Ch. Bansi Lal in which he was appointed as Minister of Finance. It is also not disputed that the Samta Party at that time was headed by Ch. Om Parkash Chautala, who soon thereafter came into power and is now at the helm of affairs in the State. It also cannot be denied that the cases against the petitioner have been registered only after Shri Chautala has come into power and though the petitioner seeks to attribute the throwing up of these cases against him to the desire of Chief Minister to hit back at him on account of his having supported Chaudhary Bansi Lat in the formation of Cabinet, the question which will necessarily arise and has to be answered is whether this circumstance by itself would enable the petitioner to short-circuit and stall any investigation into a misconduct that is alleged to have been committed by him while adorning the seat of power. The fact that some allegations have been made indicating abuse of the office during the period when he was working as Finance Minister makes it necessary both for restoring his political image as well as that of the office that an inquiry is allowed to be conducted in a manner which does not put any restriction on the powers of investigating officer, who during interrogation would necessarily give due consideration to the rights of the petitioner as has been observed in State v. Anil Sharma, AIR 1997S.C. 3806 as under :-
"The argument that the custodial interrogation is fraught with the danger of the person being subjected to third degree methods need not be countenanced, for, such an argument can be advanced by all accused in all criminal cases. The Court has to presume that responsible Police Officers would conduct themselves in a responsible manner and that those entrusted with the task of disinterring offences would not conduct themselves as offenders."
10. Therefore, when public interest requires that any shadow of doubt is cast upon the integrity of their elected representatives, an opportunity should be given to the investigating agency to seek the requisite clarification regarding any doubt which they have in their mind about the role played by the petitioner in the recruitment of Ramesh Singh Patwari as well as 12 Class IV employees in the office of District Treasury Officer, Kaithal.
11. Before making the aforesaid observations, the Apex Court had observed as under:-
"We find force in the submission of the CBI that custodial interrogation is qualitatively more elicitation-oriented than questioning a suspect who is well ensconced with a favourable order under Section 438 of the Code. In a case like this effective interrogation of suspected person is of tremendous advantage in disinterring many useful informations and also materials which would have been concealed. Success in such interrogation would elude if the suspected person knows that he is well protected and insulated by a pre-arrest bail order during the time he is interrogated. Very often interrogation in such a condition would reduce to a mere ritual."
12. In this case too like in the case before the CBI, the allegations sought to be gone into were to the effect that the petitioner had by misuse of power amassed more wealth far in excess of the non (Known ?) source of his income. The only difference is that in Anil Sharma's case (supra), the investigation was being conducted by Central Agency, which presumably would not be affected by the considerations of focal politics. In this case, where public interest requires that any shadow of doubt that has been cast upon the integrity of an elected representative is removed at the earliest, an opportunity should necessarily be given to the investigating agency to seek requisite clarification regarding any doubt, which they have in their mind regarding the role alleged to have been played by the peiitioner in the recruitment of Ramesh Singh as Patwari as well as 12 Class IV employees in the office of District Treasury Office, Kaithal. The apprehension of the petitioner that he would get a raw deal from the police during investigation in this case cannot be countenanced for want of any material showing that any partial approach is being adopted by the investigating agency in this case.
13. Taking all these circumstances into consideration, I am of the opinion that no restrictions can in this case be placed by this Court on the right of the investigating agency to interrogate the petitioner while in custody in FIRs. No. 302 and 320. Consequently, both these petitions have to be dismissed. Ordered accordingly.
14. Petitions dismissed.