Dadar magistrate encircles case number in red as order, rapped by HC

Mumbai: A Dadar magistrate recently stumped the Bombay high court and drew its ire when he said that encircling, in red, the serial number of a case on the daily board indicated his order. When the HC sought an explanation from Laxmikant Bidwai for flouting its directions, rather than admitting his error in failing to pass an order, he “tried to mislead’’ it by implying that the red circle was his order.
“The practice followed by the magistrate is incorrect. He ought to have passed a specific order,’’ said Justice A V Nirgude of the HC recently and rescued an ‘accused’ by allowing withdrawal of a complaint, an order, that the metropolitan magistrate was meant to pass.
It took a year and nine orders from the HC as the magistrate kept flouting orders before the state’s plea for withdrawal of a case, wrongly filed against Bharat Doshi, a former director of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, was allowed. Much after he had ceased in November 2013, to be a director and “occupier’’ of the factory, a deputy director, industrial safety and health in Mumbai, had lodged a complaint as factory inspector against Doshi for an alleged mishap at the company’s Sewri factory in July 2014. That December, the magistrate refused to allow Doshi’s lawyer, Amol Phoujdar, to argue for his exemption on the grounds that Doshi was not present and issued a warrant for his appearance.
The factory inspector, N A Devraj, government and prosecutor, realizing their error of filing a case against Doshi when he was not in charge of the day-to-day functioning of the company, sought withdrawal of the complaint last May. The state said it wanted to withdraw it as otherwise “it would be an abuse of process of law’’. When Bidwai refused, Doshi moved the HC through advocate Sachin Mandlik and sought to quash the case. Doshi is a business leader and holds directorial positions in several companies.
The HC observed in July 2015 that the magistrate had clearly “failed to understand that the prosecution can be withdrawn by the public prosecutor under provisions of Section 321 of the Criminal Procedure Code’’. The magistrate also did not appreciate that the prosecutors always represent the state, said the HC. Bidwai had demanded a copy of the government order permitting withdrawal of case.
On the HC orders, when the prosecutor in August 2015 sought to mention the withdrawal plea before Bidwai for orders, he said a similar plea was “already pending’’. Again the matter was heard by the HC, which last September observed that despite directions Bidwai had “declined to pass necessary orders, flouting HC orders’’.
The HC said Bidwai “cannot place reliance on markings on the ‘board’ to be his orders”.
“Such remarks are made after judicial orders are passed,’’ it said. Justice Nirgude observed, “He tried to mislead court by placing reliance on the ‘mark’ on the ‘board’. One may also suspect that the mark was made subsequently.”