BABU SINGH Vs. DR GURTEJ SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision petition is directed against the order dated December 23, 1982, passed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Sirsa, whereby Dr. Gurtej Singh respondent being a public servant, has been held to be removable from service by the State Government and protected under Section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short, the Code).

(2.) THE facts giving rise to this revision are very few and simple. Babu Singh, son of Ajmer Singh, filed a complaint against six accused including the respondent Dr. Gurtej Singh, marking several allegations and alleging that the doctor had deliberately prepared wrong postmortem report regarding the death of Surjit Singh who had died on account of gun -shot injuries. After recording the preliminary evidence, the M magistrate summoned the respondent to answer the charge under Section 201, Indian Penal Code, for destroying the evidence of murder by firearm. Aggrieved against that order, the respondent went up in revision which was allowed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Sirsa.

(3.) THE question which falls for decision is, 'whether the respondent was acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duties at the time when the offence was alleged to have been committed. The law relating to the circumstances under which a person can be said to be acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty has by now been well -settled but the difficulty arises in applying the same to the particular facts of a case. It was pointed out in Baij Nath v. State of Madhya Pradesh AIR 1966 SC 220: "It is not every offence committed by a public servant that requires sanction for prosecution under Section 197(1) of the Criminal procedure Code; nor even every act done by him while he is actually engaged in the performance of his official duties, but where the act complained of is directly concerned with the discharge of his official duties. It has further been held that the question of sanction may be copnsideraed by the Court at any stage of the trial in order to find out whether the offence charged is such as to fall within the scope of the duty of the public servant concerned." The allegation made against the respondent is that he being a public servant conducted p[postmortem examination of the dead body of Surjit Singh deceased and prepared a false and incorrect report in order to screen the culprits from the offence of murder punishable under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. Whether this allegation is true or not is a matter whcih will come to be decided after the evidence has been gone into the at this stage I am not prepared to hold that the allegation made by the complainant is not sufficient to justify the summoning of the respondent before the Court. Be that as it any, it is not disputed that the respondent was a public servant at the relevant time and he had conducted autopsy on the dead body of Surjit Singh in the discharge of his official duty and, therefore, he was removable from service only by the State Government or by the sanction of the State Government as provided under Section 197(1) of the Code. Similar view was taken by Surinder Singh, J, in Dr. Ram Sarup 'Agnihotri & another v. Gopi Ra, 1978 CLR (P&H) 187 and I respectfully agree with the view taken by my learned brother. The petition, therefore, fails and is dismissed. It would however, be open to the prosecution to apply and obtain sanction for the prosecution of the respondent from the competent authority in accordance with law, if so advised. The observations made by me in this order shall not, however, affect the merits of the case.