1. By the present application, under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the applicant, who is an accused, in Case Crime Nos. 524 of 2012 and 525 of 2012 registered at P.S. Dadri, District Gautam Budh Nagar, has prayed for quashing of the charge-sheet No. 301 of 2012 dated 08.10.2012 and charge-sheet No. 325 of 2012 dated 30.10.2012 submitted by the police in connection with the above cases and has further prayed for a direction to the Investigating Officer or to the trial court concerned to direct the Investigating Officer to submit an impartial investigation report by another agency and to complete investigation after clubbing six separate FIRs pertaining to Case Crime Nos. 524 of 2012, 525 of 2012, 526 of 2012, 530 of 2012, 531 of 2012 and 688 of 2012 all registered at P.S. Dadri, District Gautam Budh Nagar.
2. Despite the above elaborate prayer, Sri V.P. Srivastava, learned senior counsel, who has appeared for the applicant, assisted by Sri A.K. Sachan, has confined his prayer only for quashing of the charge-sheet of aforesaid Case Crime No. 525 of 2012 on ground that it relates to the same incident as Case Crime No. 524 of 2012. The thrust of the argument is that there could be no two first information reports of the same crime /incident, hence, proceedings in pursuance of the second charge-sheet are liable to be quashed and the same ought to be treated as supplemental charge-sheet to Case Crime No. 524 of 2012.
3. For a better understanding of the facts of the case, it would be useful to give a brief description of the separate cases, which have been referred to in the application. The six cases are as follows:-
(i) Case Crime No. 524 of 2012 at P.S. Dadri, District Gautam Budh Nagar was registered on the first information report lodged by Mool Chand Sharma against four named accused apart from others. The named accused were Bhola, Gagan, Ankit and Arun Arya (the applicant). In the first information report, it has been alleged that while the informant was leaving his 'Gali' (a narrow path way), he saw Bhola, Gagan, Ankit and Arun Arya (the applicant), along with others, teasing girls. The informant objected to it, on which the accused persons started beating the informant and when others intervened, the accused persons escaped from the spot by firing in the air.
(ii) Case Crime No. 525 of 2012 at P.S. Dadri, District Gautam Budh Nagar was registered on the first information report of Devki Nandan Sharma (appears to be brother of first informant of Case Crime No.524 of 2012) against Arun Arya (the applicant), Gagan, Bhola, Pramod, Ashok and Yogesh. In this first information report, it was alleged that when Mool Chand Sharma had objected to the eve teasing, he was beaten. As a result, he lodged report against Arun Arya (the applicant) and others. Feeling aggrieved by lodging of the first information report, the accused persons came, armed with weapons, and fired at Ravindra, Vikas, Deepak and Banti, which resulted in the death of Ravindra and caused injuries to Deepak and Vikas. This first information report related to an incident which occurred at about 9 PM in the night of 12.08.2012, whereas the incident which gave rise to Case Crime No. 524 of 2012 occurred much earlier, sometime, at about 4:30 PM for which first information report was lodged at 17:15 hours.
(iii) Case Crime No. 526 of 2012 relates to first information report lodged by one Kapil Sharma (son of Mool Chand Sharma- the first informant of Case Crime No.524 of 2012) against Dhanpal and one Prem. In this report, the applicant is not an accused. In this first information report, which was lodged on 13.09.2012 at 7:30 AM, it has been alleged that when, in the morning of 13.09.2012, the informant along with his father (Mool Chand Sharma) and Sachin had gone to see the persons injured in the incident dated 12.09.2012, at the hospital, the accused Dhanpal and Prem shot at the informant with an intent to kill him but, somehow, the informant could escape. The motive for the incident which gave rise to Case Crime No. 526 of 2012, as per the first information report, appears to be to finish off the witnesses of the earlier incident dated 12.09.2012. However, the applicant is neither an accused nor an informant in the said case.
(iv) Case Crime No. 531 of 2012 has been registered on the first information report of one Navin Kumar against several persons including the informant of Case Crime No. 526 of 2012. In the FIR of this case it has been alleged that in the morning at about 7 AM, on 13.09.2012, a number of persons had congregated at the house of the informant to take revenge for the incident, which took place in the night of 12.09.2012, in which Ravindra Sharma had died. In case crime no. 531 of 2012, the applicant is neither an accused nor an informant.
(v) Case Crime No. 688 of 2012 has been registered at the instance of Manju wife of Laxman Singh in which several persons have been made accused including the informant of case crime no. 526 of 2012. In this case, the informant has alleged that large number of persons had come armed with weapons and had destroyed the belongings of the informant. This case appears to be related to an incident which allegedly took place at about 7 AM on 13.09.2012. It appears to be a case of retaliation against the murder of Ravindra Sharma. The applicant is neither an accused nor an informant in the said case.
(vi) Case Crime No. 530 of 2012 appears to have been registered on a first information report lodged by Major Veer Singh Arya (the father of the applicant) in which a counter version of the night incident dated 12.09.2012 has been set up.
4. Sri V.P. Srivastava, relying on judgment of the Apex Court in the case of Babubhai v. State of Gujarat & Ors. : (2010) 12 SCC 254, submitted that from a reading of the first information reports, in all the aforesaid criminal cases, it appears that all the incidents were inter-related and formed part of the same transaction, inasmuch as, they started with an incident of eve teasing, giving rise to Case Crime No. 524 of 2012, followed with an incident in which one Ravindra died and in retaliation thereof subsequent incidents occurred, therefore, all these incidents become so interlinked both in place and in proximity of time that they ought to have been investigated and tried as one crime and not as separate crimes giving rise to separate FIRs followed by separate charge-sheets.
5. The learned counsel for the opposite parties submitted that the incident giving rise to case crime no.525 of 2012 is a separate incident although may have been motivated by the incident of Case Crime No.524 of 2012. Further, it is well settled that there can be different versions, disclosing different crimes, with different set of accused of an incident. It has thus been prayed that the application is misconceived and should be dismissed.
6. Having considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties and on perusal of the record, this Court finds that the incident of eve teasing, which gave rise to Case Crime No. 524 of 2012, was a separate incident, although, may have provided motive for the subsequent incident of the same day at night in which one Ravindra was killed and other persons were injured. The incident of eve teasing and subsequent incident of the murder of Ravindra, which gave rise to separate criminal cases, cannot be said to be part of the same transaction. More so, when the subsequent incident occurred, which gave rise to case crime no.525 of 2012, already a first information report had been registered giving rise to case crime no.524 of 2012. An act may constitute a motive for a subsequent act. But merely because it forms motive for the subsequent act, it would not make the subsequent act a part of the same transaction. Because the first act by itself may be a transaction complete in itself to constitute an offence.
7. In Babubhai's case (supra) two communities clashed with each other giving rise to a series of incidents forming part of same transaction whereas in the instant case the incidents are separate and not part of the same transaction though they are linked to each other as a reaction to an action. Case Crime No. 524 of 2012 relates to an incident of eve teasing, which was objected to by one Mool Chand Sharma, who was beaten by the accused whereas Case Crime No. 525 of 2012 relates to an incident where the accused of Case Crime No. 524 of 2012 came, after lodging of FIR in respect of the earlier incident, to settle the score and, in the process, killed Ravindra and injured Deepak and Vikas. No doubt, there is a separate version also of the incident dated 12.09.2012, which has given rise to Case Crime No. 530 of 2012, but whether case crime no. 530 of 2012 is the second FIR of Case Crime No. 525 of 2012 is not there for adjudication in this case, inasmuch as, the applicant before this Court is neither an accused nor an informant in Case Crime No. 530 of 2012. This Court is therefore of the considered view that the prayer of the applicant to quash the charge-sheet of Case Crime No. 525 of 2012, as being the result of second FIR of the same incident, is worthy of rejection. The application is, accordingly, dismissed.
Order Date :- 26.3.2014 Sunil Kr Tiwari