Madras High Court quashes ‘false case’ against Sub-Treasury Officer for objecting to judicial officers’ bills

The Madras High Court has quashed a First Information Report (FIR) registered against a Sub-Treasury Officer after being convinced that it was a “false case” registered at the instance of a few judicial officers, who were aggrieved over objections raised by him to their claim for medical, fuel, education, car maintenance, mobile phone recharge, sumptuary, and robe allowances.

Justice P. Velmurugan quashed the FIR registered against P. Saravanan at the Ooty Town West police station in the Nilgiris district under Sections 296b (uttering obscene words), 329(3) (criminal trespass), and 126(2) (wrongful restraint) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) on April 24, 2025, on the basis of a complaint lodged by the office assistant of a Labour Court judge.

The office assistant had accused the Sub-Treasury Officer of having quarrelled with him when an objection was raised to parking the officer’s car near the court building located inside the Nilgiris Collectorate. The Labour Court judge had forwarded the complaint to the police, leading to the registration of the FIR under various provisions of the law.

However, the petitioner’s counsel R. Prabakar brought to the notice of the court that the car parking issue was just a ruse to register a criminal case against his client, who had raised objections in February 2025 against several allowances claimed by some of the judicial officers in the district. However, the judicial officers had got those claims cleared when the officer was on leave on March 3, 2025.

After resuming duty, he sent a complaint to the High Court on March 10, 2025, complaining that those claims had been made either by submitting forged fuel bills or without furnishing bona fide certificates for all relevant academic years to claim children’s education allowance, lack of proof for having engaged a driver to claim transport allowance, non-deduction of tax at source, and so on.

The complaint led to an inquiry by the Registrar (Vigilance) of the High Court. Since one of the judicial officers mentioned in the complaint was the wife of the Labour Court judge, the criminal case was registered against the petitioner in April 2025 on the basis of a frivolous complaint relating to car parking on the Collectorate campus from where the Sub-Treasury Office also functions, the counsel said.

Finding force in his submissions, Justice Velmurugan wrote: “This court is of the view that this is a fit case to quash the FIR since due to previous enmity between the petitioner and the Presiding Officer of the Labour Court, Udhagamandalam and his spouse, who is working as Subordinate Judge and the judicial Officers of Ooty, with their influence, a false case has been registered.”