The Jharkhand High Court quashed proceedings against Additional Collector in connection with denying access to the respondent under the RTI Act and held that the petitioners were protected under Section 197 CrPC as they were discharging their official duty and the order passed by Section 156(3) CrPC suggests that there was non-application of judicial mind.

Brief Facts:

The respondent filed a case against the petitioners after being denied access to CCTV footage which he sought under the Right to Information Act as it did not come under the purview of the RTI Act. The petitioners filed the present petition seeking the quashing of the FIR registered against them for the same.

Contentions of the Applicant:

The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner argued that the trial court passed the impugned order in a mechanical way without any application of judicial mind. It was further contended that no criminality was involved in the case and the case at best was civil in nature. It was further contended that petitioners have discharged their official duty and while discharging official duty, they are protected under Section 197 of CrPC and the FIR was thus bad in law.

Contentions of the Respondent:

The learned counsel appearing for the state contended that the FIR was registered on the direction of the court under Section 156(3) CrPC. It was further contended that the CCTV footage which was sought to be obtained through the RTI application was not provided and there was rampant corruption in the registry office and the criminality was made out since the information was not provided.

Observations of the Court:

The court observed that the complaint case had been filed on the basis of non-supply of the CCTV footage and the Right to Information Act provides a remedy if any information is not provided to any of the applicants and remedies are provided therein and the complainant filed the present complaint without availing the remedy provided. It was further stated that if the complainant was aggrieved with the impugned order, a remedy was in place to challenge the same in a higher forum.

It was further stated that the petitioners were protected under Section 197 CrPC as they were discharging their official duty and the learned court in the absence of any sanction had sent the matter for registration of FIR. It was further stated that the order passed by Section 156(3) CrPC suggests that there was non-application of judicial mind. The court referred to the judgement in Priyanka Srivastava and another v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors. to state that an order under Section 156(3) CrPC is not required to be passed mechanically and the learned court is required to apply its judicial mind for passing such order.

The court further stated that a criminal case has been filed for a civil wrong in the present case and referred to the judgment in the State of Haryana and others v. Bhajan Lal and ors. to state that it was a fit case to exercise power under Article 226 of the constitution.

The decision of the Court:

The court allowed the petition and quashed the entire criminal proceedings.

Case Title: Ranjeet Kumar Lal and anr. vs. State of Jharkhand and anr.

Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi  

Case No.: W.P. (Cr.) No. 192 of 2022

Advocate for the Applicant: Ms. Surabhi

Advocate for the Respondent: Mr. Devesh Krishna and Mr. Pratyush Shounikya

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