Introduction:

The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court recently declined to quash a criminal case against former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader Nakka Ananda Babu. The case stems from allegations of assaulting prison personnel during their transfer to Aurangabad Central Jail in 2010. A division bench of Justice Mangesh Patil and Justice Shailesh P Brahme observed sufficient evidence indicating the complicity of both individuals in the alleged crime.

Arguments:

Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra, representing Naidu and Babu, argued that the jurisdiction to prosecute lay solely with the Superintendent of the Prison under the Prisons Act, 1894, as certain acts of the accused constituted both prison offenses and offenses under the IPC. However, the court emphasized that the charges brought against the accused pertained solely to IPC offenses, with no mention of prison offenses in the FIR or charge-sheet. The court reasoned that the absence of specific mention of prison offenses indicated that the case fell under the purview of the IPC rather than the Prisons Act.

Court’s Judgement:

The court rejected the applications seeking to quash the criminal case against the accused individuals. It noted that the FIR was promptly filed following the incident, and medical examination reports of injured police personnel provided substantial evidence implicating the applicants. Witness statements and injury certificates further supported the allegations. The court clarified that while the Superintendent may choose to inflict punishment under the Prisons Act or forward the prisoner to a Judicial Magistrate First Class for trial, such discretion did not apply to offenses exclusively falling under the IPC.