Sri Pratap Singh v. State of U.P. and 2 Others

Court No. - 45 Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. WRIT PETITION No. - 15065 of 2023 Petitioner :- Sri Pratap Singh Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Sudarshan Singh,Anurag Pandey Counsel for Respondent :- G.A. Hon'ble Vivek Kumar Birla,J. Hon'ble Vinod Diwakar,J.

¶1Heard Shri Anurag Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner as well as Sri Vivek Shukla, State Law Officer for the respondents.

¶2The present writ petition has been preferred with the prayer to quash the impugned First Information Report dated 24.08.2023 registered as Case Crime No. 344 of 2023, under Sections 3/7 Essential Commodities Act, P.S. Bilari, District Moradabad, and for a direction to the respondents not to arrest the petitioners in pursuance of impugned First Information Report.

¶3The submission is that all alleged offences are punishable with imprisonment upto seven years, therefore the police authorities are bound to follow the procedure laid down under Section 41-A Cr.P.C. The petitioners have been wrongly implicated and could not be arrested. Reliance has been placed on the judgement of Apex Court in Arnesh Kumar Vs. State of Bihar, (2014) 8 SCC 273 and Social Action Forum for Manav Adhikar Vs. Union of India, Ministry of Law and Justice and others in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 73 of 2015 with Criminal Appeal No. 1265 of 2017 Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 156 of 2017 and in Satendra Kumar Antil vs. Central Bureau of Investigation and Another (2022) 10 SCC 51 and co-ordinate Division Bench of this Court in Vimal Kumar & 3 others Vs. State of U.P. & 3 others in 2021

(2) ACR 1147.

¶4We have gone through the impugned First Information Report and we are of the opinion that the guidelines framed by the Apex Court in the above noted judgement are equally applicable to the facts of the instant case.

¶5Accordingly, the instant petition also stands disposed of in terms of the judgements as noted above. Order Date :- 12.10.2023 Ujjawal High Court of Judicature at Allahabad