JAGDISH KRISHNASWAMY Vs. DEPUTY CONSERVATOR OF FOREST

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These petitions are heard and disposed of together by this common order as the allegations are similar against the petitioners. The petitioners claim to be wild life biologists, architects, lawyers, coffee planters and businessmen. One of the petitioners is also a retired Range Forest Officer with an impeccable record and who is a recipient of the Chief Minister's Medal for outstanding service. They are avid nature lovers, who have been carrying on forest and wildlife conservation for over four decades and have campaigned extensively for the protection of forests in the Kudremukh area.

(2.) The learned Senior Advocate Shri Udaya Holla, appearing for the Counsel for the petitioners, would submit that at least ten petitions before this court have been allowed in respect of the very same charges brought against the petitioners and others, and these petitions and three more are in the series, sought to be foisted against the petitioners on false and exaggerated charges of unauthorized entry into the forest and commission of other offences punishable under the provisions of the aforesaid legislation.

(3.) While the learned Additional State Public Prosecutor would seek to justify the orders of the court below and would submit that it is not fatal to the case that the date and time of the alleged incident is not mentioned either in the first information report or the charge sheet and it could be supplemented by the evidence that would be tendered at the trial. This statement cannot be accepted. It is essential in a report, on which criminal prosecution is launched, to contain the particulars of the time and date of the incident, as is spelt out under Section 212 of the Cr.P.C. and in the absence of this necessary detail, the further proceedings would be futile. It is unfortunate that there is this lapse when the author of the report was a Police Officer, who ought to have known the need for this basic requirement of the date and time of the incident, which if not stated, the accused would not be in a position to meet the case at all or to claim their defences in respect of what would only be vague allegations.