Raid By Officials Of Eastern Coalfield Ltd. Not Illegal: Calcutta HC Quashes Proceedings Against Security Officers Accused Of Theft & Outraging Modesty

The Calcutta High Court has quashed the proceedings against the security officers of the Eastern Coalfield Limited who were accused of theft and outraging modesty. It held that the raid by the said officials was not illegal in any way.

The Court was deciding a revision application filed by the petitioners/officials praying for quashing of the proceedings against them which were pending before the Chief Judicial Magistrate.

A Single Bench of Justice Bibhas Ranjan De held, “… raid by the officials of Eastern Coalfield Ltd. by virtue of repeated directions of this Hon’ble Court cannot be said to be an illegal in any way. Both the FIR lodged by the parties to this revision application clearly support the raid conducted by the petitioners. On the other hand, there is no explanation in the F.I.R in connection with Salanpur Police Station Case No. 29 of 2016 regarding considerable delay that too after lodging FIR by area security officer of the eastern coalfield in connection with Salanpur Police Station case no. 28 of 2016 on the same date.”

The Bench said that the allegation made in the FIR was absurd and it cannot be believable that the said officials committed the offence of theft and outrage of modesty.

Advocate Somopriyo Chowdhury appeared for the petitioners while Advocate Pravash Bhattacharya appeared for the State.

In this case, the officials of Eastern Coalfield Ltd. were involved in the matter of unleashing a terror and running of parallel administration of illegal mining within the Eastern Coalfield area under Salanpur Police Station, District Burdwan. The said officials along with CISF personnel and police authorities raided at Davar Colliery where miscreants were found operating in the mines. During the said raid, huge amount of illegal coal was found in abandoned unsafe building.

The entire consignment of coal was seized and at that time, the raid party performing its public duty was attacked with knives and other weapons by the accused persons. The accused persons resisted the petitioners/officials from seizing the coal and threatened to implicate them in false rape and molestation charges. The petitioners manged to save themselves and a complaint was lodged for the offences under Sections 379, 411, 413, 414, 120B, 186, and 353 of IPC read with Section 30(II) of CMN Act.

The High Court took note of the petitioners’ arguments that as a counter blast, one of the opposite parties alleged them of entering her house armed with iron rod, lathi, and other weapons and abusing as well as assaulting her, taking away Rs. 5,000/- from below her bed, and throwing her out of her house.

The Court in view of the facts and circumstances of the case observed, “After careful perusal of the all documents produced before this court, I have no hesitation to exercise the jurisdiction under section 482 with the assistance of ratio of Vineet Kumar (supra) and D.P. Gulati (supra) as all steps suggested by the Hon’ble Apex Court in Rajiv Thapar vs. Madanlal Kapoor ( 2013) 3 SCC 330 have been complied with and therefore, I find no difficulty in coming to conclusion that the proceeding with the trial in connection with Salanpur Police Station Case no. 29 of 2016 dated 31.01.2016 would result in an abuse of process of the court, and would not serve the ends of justice.”

Accordingly, the Court allowed the revision application and quashed the proceedings.

Cause Title- Raja Paul & Ors. v. State of West Bengal & Anr.

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