MIDC employees are entitled to protection from unwarranted prosecution: HC

A practising lawyer from Dhule had filed a private complaint at Sindhkheda police station this year alleging that certain individuals, in connivance with MIDC officials, had obtained allotment of plots in Nardana Industrial Area

MUMBAI: The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court on Monday held that employees of the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) qualify as “public servants” and therefore, are entitled to procedural protection against unwarranted prosecution while discharging their official duties.

Mumbai, India - September 03, 2021: Bombay High Court at Fort, in Mumbai, India, on Friday, September 03, 2021. (Photo by Anshuman Poyrekar/Hindustan Times) (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT PHOTO)

The complainant, a practising lawyer from Dhule, had filed a private complaint at Sindhkheda police station this year alleging that certain individuals, in connivance with MIDC officials, had obtained allotment of plots in Nardana Industrial Area. The petitioner, Namrata Subhash Pawar, who works as a MIDC Assistant, was also alleged to be involved in offences of criminal breach of trust, cheating and forgery.

In response to the complaint, the Magistrate court on May 6, 2025, directed an FIR to be registered and ordered an investigation under provisions of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (BNS). On May 31, the Dhule sessions court upheld this order. Aggrieved by this, Pawar moved the high court, stating that the Magistrate court grossly erred in taking cognisance of the procedural safeguard to protect a public servant from frivolous complaints and eventual prosecution.

Senior advocate V D Sakpal, appearing for Pawar, submitted that the magistrate court committed an “overreach” while directing the authorities to file a chargesheet against him. “Statutory scheme under BNSS does not empower a Magistrate to issue such a direction to the Investigating Officer,” he said, adding that the Magistrate is statutorily obligated to receive a report from a superior officer.

On the other hand, additional public prosecutor M N Ghanekar contended that, despite the Industrial Development Corporation being a state instrumentality, an MIDC employee does not automatically become a public servant. He said that the magistrate was justified in invoking the provisions of the BNSS.

The court, however, held that the Maharashtra Industrial Development Act, 1961, makes it manifestly clear that all members, officers, and servants of the Corporation, when acting or purporting to act in pursuance of any of the provisions of the Act, shall be deemed to be public servants within the meaning of Section 21 of the Indian Penal Code, 1861 (IPC). Highlighting the procedural safeguard in case of a public servant, a single judge bench of Justice Sachin S. Deshmukh observed that it was consciously incorporated to confer a shield upon public servants discharging their official duties. Therefore, it said, the magistrate’s failure in taking cognisance of a report from a superior officer first “amounts to defying the statutory mandate”.

“The courts are not expected to act as passive transmitters of information, but must carefully examine whether an investigation by the state agency is genuinely warranted. In that vein, the Magistrate must not act as a mere conduit for forwarding complaints to the police”, the court said.

To its “utter shock and surprise”, the high court held the Magistrate’s order to be unsustainable in law for “misreading and misinterpreting the statutory mandate”. Consequently, the bench said that the prosecution must be regarded as illegal and quashed the earlier orders passed by the lower courts.