‘Obstructing’ mining operations: HC quashes 2021 FIR against Sukhbir

The Punjab and Haryana high court has quashed an FIR registered against Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief, Sukhbir Singh Badal on July 1, 2021, at the Beas police station in Amritsar

Chandigarh : The Punjab and Haryana high court has quashed an FIR registered against Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief, Sukhbir Singh Badal on July 1, 2021, at the Beas police station in Amritsar.

The Punjab and Haryana high court has quashed an FIR registered against Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief, Sukhbir Singh Badal on July 1, 2021, at the Beas police station in Amritsar.

The FIR was registered under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, disobedience to an order by a public servant, causing obstruction, criminal intimidation and unlawful activities.

The allegations were of “obstruction in mining operations of a private company”. Sukhbir had claimed that illegal mining was going on near the bridge on Beas and he had gone to check that.

The prosecution said that Sukhbir allegedly started threatening employees and staff of the company and obstructed and interfered in legal mining operations at the de-silting site. Covid-19 restrictions were also in place when incident took place, the prosecution argued.

The high court bench of justice Anoop Chitkara observed that a joint reference to all the sections does not make out any case to prosecute him. Instead, there is a force in his stand that the case against him is “bereft of substance”.

“In a democratic country, if a well-established political person, on hearing serious complaints regarding any public issue, decides to verify the same by visiting the spot itself, it cannot be said that he intended to violate any promulgation issued by any government …,” the bench said.

It further added that there is no allegation that he had gone to the spot to intimidate or do any physical harm to the workers and employees of the private firm. “It is not the prosecution’s case that the petitioner had any ulterior motive. Instead, the petitioner claims that he visited the spot to check the ground reality about the allegations of illicit mining in an environmentally susceptible riverbed area, on receiving significant complaints being the people’s representative, watcher, and mouthpiece,” the bench added.

The court added that the prosecution has not gathered any evidence of what disobedience Sukhbir caused under the Disaster Management Act of 2006.

“In the given facts and the evidence collected, no offence under Section 188 of the IPC is made against the petitioner, and the argument raised on behalf of the petitioner that it is a misuse of the process of law cannot be taken as incorrect,” the bench said, adding that it was not even considering the provisions of Section 195 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) under which only complaint could be filed by the officer whose orders were violated and not by the police on the basis of investigation.