- (1.) These petitions filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India read with Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, raise an interesting issue as to whether the period of limitation provided in the Service Rules for initiation of judicial proceedings would apply in cases where criminal proceedings are sought to be launched against retired public servants, especially to proceedings initiated under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (hereinafter referred to as 'P.C. Act for short').
(2.) The petitioners in these batch of petitions were working in the Regional Transport Offices at various places in the State and in various capacities such as First Division Assistant, Office Superintendent etc. It appears that Sri B.N.Jagadeesh (one of the respondents) presented a private complaint under Section 200 of the Code of Criminal Procedure on 06.08.2012 against unknown persons, alleging that many Officers in the Department of Customs, Regional Transport Offices in Karnataka had nexus with dealers of vehicles, middlemen and owners of imported vehicles and were involved in multi-crore racket causing loss to the exchequer. It was alleged in the complaint that vehicles are brought to India by illegal means by fabricating and manipulating the Bill of Entry, Bill of Lading etc. and are presented before the Custom officials and in collusion with the Custom officials, such imported vehicles were brought into India on short payment of custom duty and thereafter with the connivance of the officials in the RTOs again short payment of duty/taxes were made, thereby causing huge revenue loss to the exchequer. Therefore, criminal prosecution was sought to be initiated under the provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Indian Penal Code.
(3.) The learned Magistrate/Special Judge for Prevention of Corruption referred the complaint for investigation to the Superintendent of Police, Lokayukta under Section 156 (3) of Cr.P.C. Pursuant to the order of investigation, the Deputy Superintendent of Police registered FIRs under Sections 8 and 12 of P.C. Act. The petitioners were asked to appear before the Lokayukta Police and submit their reply with reference to the vehicle, along with particulars where it was alleged that there was short levy of penalty/duty/tax.;