New Delhi: An allegation made against a public servant before a magistrate will not be sufficient to put in motion proceedings against him as Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that the complaint must be backed by an affidavit. The court said it was needed to ensure that judicial proceedings were not misused “to settle a score”.While interpreting section 175 of Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan said that the section was somewhat confusing and needed judicial interpretation.”Suffice it to record at the outset that BNSS being a statute of recent origin, which has been enacted after exactly half a century of its precursor (CrPC), governing the field of criminal procedure, one would have expected the legislative drafting thereof to be of the highest order with clear expression of the will of the people. Sadly, Section 175 BNSS is somewhat confusing and requires ironing out the creases in the legislation without altering the material of which it is woven,” the bench said.The court said the legislative intention behind insertion of sub-section (4) of Section 175 was clear: Parliament intended it as an additional safeguard for public servants when a complaint was made against them. “Cognizant of practical realities and to prevent false or frivolous allegations, it appears to us that the mandate is to obtain a report from the accused public servant’s superior officer and to extend to such a public servant an opportunity to explain his side of the story. While society’s interest is served by prosecuting offenders, it is equally vital, if not more, to ensure that prosecution is not launched against individuals, including public servants, to settle a score or wreak vengeance or put them in such an awkward position that it becomes difficult for them to act in a similar future occasion. The responsibility, nay duty, after all, is not just to pursue the actual culprit, but also to protect the innocent from being falsely implicated, wrongly accused and unnecessarily victimised,” it said.Section 175(4) says any judicial magistrate empowered under Section 210 may, upon receiving a complaint against a public servant arising in course of the discharge of his official duties, take cognizance, subject to – (a) receiving a report containing facts and circumstances of the incident from the officer superior to him; and (b) after consideration of the assertions made by the public servant as to the situation that led to the incident so alleged.The court said sub-section (4) was not an independent provision but operated subject to the procedural safeguards that sub-section (3) embodied, including the requirement that the application be supported by an affidavit.
