Court No. - 33
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. WRIT PETITION No. - 11363 of 2019 Petitioner :- Prince Kumar And 2 Others Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Ravi Shankar Tripathi Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.
Hon'ble Manoj Misra,J. Hon'ble Suresh Kumar Gupta,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioners; learned A.G.A. for the respondents 1, 2 and 3; and perused the record.
The instant petition seeks quashing of the first information report dated 04.04.2019 registered as Case Crime No.337 of 2019, under Sections 302, 201 IPC, P.S. Vijay Nagar, District Ghaziabad.
The case of the petitioners is that the deceased on 22.11.2018, while travelling on a train, fell over and died due to injuries. An inquest was held on 22.11.2018 upon receipt of information about the accident. As per the opinion of Panches, the deceased sustained injuries on account of falling over from the train.
The impugned first information report has been lodged by the brother of the deceased through an application under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C. stating that the deceased and the accused- petitioners had taken a flat on rent and used to live together. In the month of October, 2018, on account of dispute with regard to payment of rent for the flat, some altercation and marpeet had taken place between the deceased and the petitioners. It is alleged that, on 22.11.2018, over the phone, information was received by the informant from the police that some person has murdered his brother. It is alleged that immediately thereafter the informant contacted Prince (the petitioner no.1) on phone, who informed that in the night the brother of the informant was murdered. It is stated that, immediately, thereafter the phone was cut off and when the informant tried to contact the other two inmates of the flat, they did not receive the phone calls of the informant. The first information report has been lodged by expressing suspicion regarding involvement of the accused- petitioners in the murder of the deceased. The first information report also highlights that though the mobile phone of the deceased was found but cleverly the SIM of the mobile phone of the deceased was removed so as to avoid detection of the crime.
The learned counsel for the petitioners has urged that except for expressing suspicion, there is no cogent material against the petitioners and, otherwise also, from the inquest report it appears to be a case of rail accident and, therefore, the lodging of first information report is not justified. He has submitted that even if the first information report could be lodged, there is no justification to arrest the accused petitioners pending investigation.
Having considered the submissions, we are of the view that once it is reported that a person has died unnatural death, an investigation has to be carried out to ascertain the cause of death and if it is found that cause of death was not an accident then to ascertain the complicity of the person involved in the crime. In such matters, in absence of any material to show that the investigating agency is acting mala fide, any interference in the investigation may become a hurdle in arriving at the root of the matter and, therefore, we do not find it to be a fit case for interference, particularly, when it has been pointed out in the first information report that the SIM of the deceased was removed from the mobile phone though the mobile phone was found on spot.
For the reasons mentioned above, the petition is dismissed. In case the petitioners are wanted, they may apply for bail.
Order Date :- 30.4.2019 AKShukla/-