HC quashes criminal proceeding against IPS officer

The Gauhati High Court has quashed criminal proceeding initiated against DIG (Southern Range) Anurag Agarwal for allegedly undervaluation of a property, observing that no prima facie case has been made out against the officer.
Justice C R Sarma said that in order to prevent the abuse of the process of law and miscarriage of justice, it is just and proper to interfere with the said proceeding.
"Continuance with the criminal proceeding against the Officer will lead to unnecessary harassment and causing miscarriage of justice," Justice Sarma said on Friday in his order which is made available today.
An FIR was registered in March this year against the officer under IPC Sections 120(B) (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) and others in respect to his purchase of land with an Assam type (tin roof with wooden pillars) house in Guwahati's Noonmati in 2011.

The IPS officer then moved the High Court seeking quashing of the FIR.
Agarwal's counsel Amit Goyal contended that the Deputy Commissioner, Kamrup (Metro) lodged the FIR with Panbazar police station alleging that at the time of issuing NOC, the documents were not properly examined at the Circle level and at the Additional DC level for fixing the valuation and hence the property had been undervalued to avoid full stamp duty.
Goyal argued in the court that the allegations were directed against the officials at the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Guwahati, and that Agarwal has no role to play in fixing the valuation.