REVIED HEADLINE
Prayagraj: The Allahabad high court has rejected a petition filed by 12 proctorial board members of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), including six faculty members, seeking quashing of criminal proceedings against them in a case of alleged wrongful confinement of one Guddu Singh, who claimed to be the driver of BJP MLA from Barauli constituency of Aligarh district Thakur Dalveer Singh.
In his FIR, Guddu Singh had alleged that when he had gone to pick up the grandson of BJP MLA, he was forcibly stopped by the proctorial team of AMU and thereafter forced to remove the party flag of BJP from the car. According to him, the 12-member team had abused him and told him that their university had no place for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Rejecting the petition filed by Professor Brij Bhushan Singh and 11 other members of the AMU proctorial board, Justice JJ Munir said the presence of the accused persons (petitioners) at the place of incident is not disputed. “Therefore, whether they abused the complainant or not can only be determined by the trial court after going through the evidence placed before it during trial and not by this court in the present jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC (inherent powers of high court),” the court said.
During the course of hearing, the petitioners’ counsel had referred to certain AMU circulars banning the use of flagged cars/vehicles of any political party on the university campus.
During the court proceedings, though the petitioners’ counsel did not deny the incident of the vehicle being stopped, but denied that any abusive language was used by the petitioners as has been alleged by complainant Guddu Singh. Hence, in this backdrop of the situation, the petitioners were only enforcing the university rules at the time of the incident.
However, the state government’s counsel opposed the plea on the ground that the offence is a serious one and could have had wide ramifications on the law and order. He submitted that whatever material was there in the case diary, discloses a triable case, which ought not to be scuttled by the high court in exercise of its powers under Section 482 of the CrPC.
According to Section 482 of CrPC, the high court while exercising its inherent powers can pass such orders as may be necessary to prevent the abuse of the process of any court and to secure the ends of justice.
The court after hearing concerned parties rejected the petition, observing, “The informant was allegedly abused and then had words spoken to his ears, with intent to create enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes. This is a matter to be determined by the trial court, particularly when the presence of the applicants, each one of them on the scene of occurrence, is not in dispute.”
As per allegations in the FIR, on October 22, 2019, Guddu Singh, who claimed to be the driver of Thakur Dalveer Singh, BJP MLA from Barauli constituency of Aligarh, went to pick up Vijay Kumar Singh, the grandson of the MLA. Around 4 pm, when he entered the AMU campus and was on his way to pick up Vijay, he was forcibly stopped by the Proctorial Board team and then forced to remove the BJP party flag.
It was further alleged that during the removal of the flag, the 12-member team had abused him and had told that their university had no place for the BJP. The informant had gone on to say that the entire episode hurt him badly, and that the act had a tendency to hurt communal feelings. It is said in the FIR that the party is incumbent in the government, both at the Centre and the state. The act of those forming the proctorial team deserves to be visited with severe action, the FIR added.
The FIR of the incident was registered at Civil Lines police station of Aligarh on the same day and the police after investigation had on January 23, 2020, filed the charge sheet against them (petitioners). Hence, the charge sheet was challenged before high court in the present petition.
The court passed this order November 19.