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2005 DIGILAW 2822 (RAJ)

Rajiv Daiya v. Union of India

2005-10-26

VINEET KOTHARI

body2005
Judgment 1. The present writ petition has been filed by the petitioner in this Court with the following prayers:- (i) the Section 195 and 340 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 which is now in force wherein the offensive provisions of Section 47 and 128 of the Criminal Procedure Code Amendment Act, 1923 have been incorporated and retained in substance by the Parliament of India may kindly be declared ultra virus; and (ii) the record of the cases referred in the writ petition may kindly be ordered to be called and by an appropriate writ, order or direction which this Honble Court may deem just and proper in the facts and circumstances of the cases referred under the headings "A" to "O" may kindly be ordered to be passed in favour of the petitioner. (iii) byan appropriate writ order or direction which this Honble Court may deem just and proper in the circumstances of the case may kindly be passed in favour of the people of India. 2. The petitioner appears to be in litigation with two officials of UCO Bank, Jodhpur namely Mr. Rameshwar Lal and Mr. Chiranji Lal Sharma and in relation to some dispute with the firm M/s. Gurukripa General and Provision Store and, in which certain disputes in which the petitioner was also there and in connection with various litigations in relation to some dispute between the Bank and the said firm and the petitioner has either filed civil or criminal complaints or is facing them and the said litigation between these parties appears to have led the petitioner to file the present writ petition despite having failed in such similar approaches to this Court on previous occasions and now with an additional challenge to certain provisions of Criminal Procedure Code, particularly Sections 195 and 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. 3. 3. In fact from the chequered history of the case and the long list of the documents annexed with the writ petition, which is claimed to be a "unique blend of public interest litigation and private interest litigation" as stated in Para 2 of the writ petition itself , it shows that the petitioner is out and out to somehow teach the lesson to the aforesaid bank officials and for washing the dirty linen between them, has sought to invoke the Division Bench jurisdiction of this Court by raising a question of constitutional validity of aforesaid two provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure apparently as a cover to maintain the writ petition before the Division Bench. 4. Section 195 of CrPC provides for prosecutions for contempt of lawful authority of public servants for offences against public justice and for offences relating to documents given in evidence and Section 340 CrPC provides for procedure in cases mentioned in Section 195, CrPC. 5. Prima facie the challenge to the said provision appears to be wholly mis-conceived and un-called for. The said provision of Section 195 and Section 340 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 which are as it is para materia and have stood on the Statute Book for over a century and over eight decades, even after amendments in 1923, under earlier CrPC, 1898 as admittedly given out in the petition itself and have withstood the test of time; once again we have gone through these provisions carefully at the instance of the petitioner, and we do not find any good ground to declare any part of these provisions ultra vires. The said question of vires of these provisions appears to have been raised merely as an academic issue and we feel that it would be abuse of process of Court, if the petitioner instead of resorting to regular remedial measures before the competent forums and Courts of law as has already been done by him, he is allowed to abuse the process of this Court for getting certain documents or information from the concerned bank against whom the litigation between the parties is going on as noted above. 6. 6. The petitioner himself has given the history of litigation in his petition and has produced the various orders passed by this Court by learned Single Judges or Division Benches on previous occasions and even of Honble the Supreme Court of India vide Annexure-6 order dated 06.02.2002 dismissing the D.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 504 of 2002 Rajeev Daiya vs. State of Rajasthan where the Court found that this was not a case for PIL and the petition was liable to be dismissed. Against which an S.L.P. was filed by the petitioner before the Supreme Court of India, that was also summarily dismissed on 18.07.2002. Even prior to that upon the complaint of the petitioner having been rejected by the District Vigilance Committee on being found to be false, the petitioner approached this Court by way of writ petition which was dismissed by the learned Single Judge of this Court on 04.09.2000 and the Division Bench appeal against that namely D.B. Civil Special Appeal No. 1098 of 2000 was also disposed of on 23.03.2001 with a direction to the Vigilance Committee to look into the subsequent orders passed by the competent authority if the petitioner approaches the Vigilance Committee within one month of passing of the said order. The petitioner was not satisfied even with that and filed a Misc. Application No. 132 of 2001 Rajeev vs. Shri Rajat Mishra & Ors., which was dismissed by the Division Bench on 011.2001 refusing to initiate any contempt proceedings against the respondents. 7. Therefore, it appears that the petitioner is out and out to abuse the process of this Court to somehow exert the pressure on the private respondents with whom the regular litigation on civil side and criminal side is already going on. Such abuse of the process of the Court cannot be permitted. Therefore, the very conception of the idea of the petitioner to maintain this writ petition under the garb of challenge to vires of Section 195 and Section 340, CrPC is ill-conceived and deserves to be nipped in the bud. 8. That apart as already aforesaid, we have once again carefully read the provisions sought to be challenged by the petitioner and we found no ground to sustain the said challenge in any manner. 9. Accordingly, the present writ petition is liable to be dismissed and the same is hereby dismissed. 8. That apart as already aforesaid, we have once again carefully read the provisions sought to be challenged by the petitioner and we found no ground to sustain the said challenge in any manner. 9. Accordingly, the present writ petition is liable to be dismissed and the same is hereby dismissed. We refrain from imposing exemplary cost on the petitioner in the present case with a hope that good sense will prevail with the petitioner and such mis-conceived challenge to the validity of the provisions just in order to maintain the writ petition for oblique purposes, shall be avoided in future.