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2007 DIGILAW 9 (PAT)

Carrier Aircon Limited v. State Of Bihar

2007-01-04

ABHIJIT SINHA

body2007
Judgment 1. Through this application the petitioner-company, a company registered under the Companies Act and having its registered office at Narsingpur, Gurgaon, Haryana, has, for itself and on behalf of its officers, serving or since retired, as have been arrayed as accused in this case, sought to invoke the inherent jurisdiction of this Court for quashing the order dated 9.8.2005 passed by the learned Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Patna in Case No. 1475(M)/98. By the aforesaid order the learned Magistrate has rejected the petition of the petitioner praying therein for issuance of special summons for the purpose of pleading guilty and deposit of fine amount through the pleader in terms of the provisions of Sec.206 Cr.P.C. on the ground that coercive measures had already been resorted to prior thereto and the same was a bar to the exercise of powers under Sec.206 Cr.P.C. 2. The facts giving rise to the prosecution case can be culled out from the complaint petition filed by the Labour Superintendent-cum-lnspecting Officer. It appears that at about 3.55 P.M. on 27.8.1998, the office premises of the petitioner-Company located in Aadharshila Complex, South Gandhi Maidan, Patna, was inspected and in course thereof contravention of Sections 6, 12(1), 12-B and 33(2) of the Bihar Shops and Establishment Act, 1953 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") and Rules 3(6), 11 to 14, 17, 19 and 29 of the Bihar Shops and Establishment Rules, 1955 (hereinafter referrred to as "the Rules") were detected for which the Company and its four officers named therein were liable to be penalised under Sec.34 of the Act. It further appears that the Company and its officers without contesting the case on merit or otherwise decided to accept the guilt and pay the fine and also submitted to the jurisdiction of the trial court by assuring to be careful in future and in that contest a petition was filed praying for issuance of special summons on the accused persons along-with the permission to pay the fine through their counsels in terms of Sec.206 Cr.P.C. A further prayer was also made for exempting them from further appearance and for dropping the proceeding with the object of bringing an end to the litigation without contesting the same. However, the said petition was unceremoniously rejected by the learned Magistrate by the impugned order on the ground that the Court had already resorted to coercive measures to secure the attendance of the accused. 3. It will not be out of place to mention here that the learned Magistrate has not cared to correct the impugned order as would be apparent from the fact that although he was referring to the petition filed by the petitioner under Sec.206 Cr.P.C, in the impugned order he has mentioned the Section as 306 Cr.P.C. It is expected that the learned Magistrate will be careful, circumspect and go through the orders so that the required corrections are made before the order is signed. 4. It has been submitted on behalf of the petitioner that all the offences which are alleged to have been committed by the petitioner-Company and its officers are petty in nature in view of the provisions of Sec.34 of the Act which reads as follows: "Penalties.Any employer who contravenes any provisions of this Act or any rule or order made thereunder shall, if no other penalty is provided for the offence, be punishable with fine which may extend to two hundred and fifty rupees for the first offence and to five hundred rupees for every subsequent offence after the first conviction." 5. It was further sought to be submitted that Sec.206 Cr.P.C. specifically provides for the issuance of special summons in cases involving "petty offences" and the learned Magistrate had erred in rejecting the petition. In this connection, it was contended that the learned Magistrate had acted mechanically in rejecting the petition since the accused persons were ready to accept the guilt and to pay the fine in accordance with Sec.34 of the Act and no gainful purpose would be served by compelling the attendance of the accused. It was further contended that the approach of the learned Magistrate was an abuse of the process of the Court. 6. Sec.206 Cr. PC. It was further contended that the approach of the learned Magistrate was an abuse of the process of the Court. 6. Sec.206 Cr. PC. together with Sec.253 Cr.P.C. were inserted on the recommendations of the Law Commission in its 14th Report in order to expedite the trial and also to save the accused from inconvenience where the offence with which he is charged is "petty offence" as defined In Sec.206(2) Cr.P.C, i.e., any offence punishable only with fine not exceeding 1000 rupees but excluding offences punishable under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1939 or under any other law which provides for convicting the accused person in his absence on a plea of guilty. In this connection, I may borrow from the language in Badri Prasad Gupta vs. State of Bihar, 1986 PUR 246 where the Full Bench observed that "the administration of criminal law is more a matter of substance than of form and should not be allowed to be obscured by pettifogging technicality". 7. Admittedly, all the offences alleged against the Company and its officers come within the ambit of the definition of "petty offences". When the accused himself required that the proceedings under Sec.206 Cr.P.C. should be conducted in his absence and he was represented by a counsel, courts ordinarily should not hesitate to dispense with the personal attendance of the accused. In the instant case, the learned Magistrate rejected the petition merely because coercive measures had already been resorted to prior to the filing of the petition but that by itself cannot overrule or circumvent the pious intention incorporated in Sec.206 Cr.P.C. Sub-section (3) of Sec.206 Cr.P.C. has even widened the scope to the extent that on the special empowerment by the State Government a Magistrate can exercise the powers conferred by sub-section (1) in relation to any offences which is compoundable under Sec.320 and to other offences punishable with imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months where a Magistrate is of opinion that imposition of only fine would meet the ends of justice. 8. 8. Due regard being had to the facts and the circumstances of the case, the impugned order is set aside and the learned court below is directed to accept the fine amount through the representative of the Company without encumbering its officials to be physically present in court for the said purpose which may be irrelevant and futile considering due authorisation in favour of the Company representative for doing the needful. Accordingly, this application is allowed.