Jammu: The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has quashed criminal proceedings against five petitioners in a case arising from alleged irregularities in the attestation of mutations involving 116 kanals and 12 marlas of land in Rajpur Kohlar village of Samba district, holding that an allegedly erroneous exercise of statutory powers cannot, by itself, constitute criminal misconduct or criminal conspiracy.
Justice Sanjay Parihar, in a judgment delivered on Thursday, allowed petitions challenging FIR No. 05/2021 registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), Jammu, under Section 5(1)(d) read with Section 5(2) of the J&K Prevention of Corruption Act, Samvat 2006, and Section 120-B RPC. The court also quashed the consequential criminal proceedings insofar as they related to the petitioners.
The case pertained to Mutation Nos. 558, 559 and 564, which were attested during settlement operations in 2011.
According to the prosecution, revenue officials had abused their official position and violated provisions of the Agrarian Reforms Act and Government Order S-432 of 1996, thereby conferring unlawful ownership benefits on certain beneficiaries and causing loss to the State exchequer through non-payment of stamp duty.
The petitioners contended that the mutations had been attested by competent revenue officers while exercising statutory powers under Section 121 of the J&K Land Revenue Act. They argued that the dispute related to the interpretation and application of revenue laws and did not disclose any criminal offence.
Examining the matter, the High Court noted that Section 121 empowers revenue authorities to summarily determine questions of title arising during settlement proceedings. The court observed that the settlement operations had been duly authorised and that the officer who attested the mutations had the statutory authority to do so. The issue, it said, concerned the scope and manner of exercising that authority rather than any lack of jurisdiction.
The judgment also referred to proceedings before the Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, which concluded on May 22, 2025. The Divisional Commissioner declined to interfere with the mutations but directed recovery of the requisite stamp duty and related charges. The High Court observed that the competent revenue authority had treated the issue as one involving recoverable statutory dues rather than invalidating the mutations.
A key factor in the court’s decision was the absence of material suggesting bribery, illegal gratification or any prior agreement between the beneficiaries and revenue officials. The court held that criminal prosecution requires material capable of prima facie establishing dishonest or corrupt intent and that a disagreement over the interpretation of a statutory provision cannot, by itself, form the basis of criminal liability.
The court further reiterated the distinction between an erroneous or irregular exercise of statutory power and its dishonest abuse. While statutory or quasi-judicial orders may be subjected to criminal investigation where there is evidence of bribery, fraud, abuse of office or conspiracy, an alleged legal error alone does not establish criminal misconduct, the judgment said.
The court also noted that mutation entries in revenue records do not, by themselves, create or extinguish title, citing Supreme Court precedents on the issue.
Holding that the material placed on record did not disclose the essential ingredients of criminal misconduct or criminal conspiracy, Justice Parihar ruled that continuation of the proceedings would amount to an abuse of the process of law. The petitions were accordingly allowed and the criminal proceedings arising out of the FIR were quashed insofar as the petitioners were concerned.