High Court
Case Details
Neutral Citation No. - 2024:AHC:110084 Court No. - 77 Case :- APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 6864 of 2024 Applicant :- Anil Mishra Opposite Party :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Applicant :- Kartikeya Saran,Vinayak Ranjan Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A. Hon'ble Samit Gopal,J. 1. List revised.
Legal Reasoning
2. Heard Sri Vinayak Ranjan, learned counsel for the applicant and Sri Birendra Pratap Singh, learned counsel for the State and perused the material on record. 3. This application under Section 482 Cr.P.C. has been filed by the applicant- Anil Mishra, with the prayer to allow this application and quash the entire proceeding as well as impugned Final Form / Supplementary charge-sheet dated 08.08.2023 & cognizance order dated 17.11.2023 in Case No. 25397 of 2023 (State Vs. Akashju Baranwal and others) arising out of FIR No. 0068 of 2023, under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 I.P.C., Police Station Aurai, District Bhadohi, pending in the Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhadohi, with a further prayer that proceeding of the aforesaid case be stayed against the applicant during the pendency of the present application. 4. The facts in the present case are that a first information report was lodged on 09.12.2022 under Sections 419, 420 I.P.C. and 66C of the Information & Technology Act, 2008 by Devendra Singh, District Food Inspector, Bhadoi as Case Crime No. 0240 of 2022 against Santosh Kumar Shukla alleging therein that in the process of purchase of paddy for the year 2022-2023 a Login ID and password were used in an unauthorized manner by someone and the digital signature, I.P. address of officials were reset and the accused through his digital signature verified the credentials of various farmers purporting it to be verified by the S.D.M., Bhadohi, S.D.M., Aurai and S.D.M., Gyanpur. The farmers who were verified are also expected to be involved in the matter. 5. The applicant was granted bail in the said matter vide order dated 21.02.2023 by the Additional District & Sessions Judge, Bhadohi. 6. Subsequently a first information report which is the subject matter of the present case was lodged on 27.04.2023 as Case Crime No. 0068 of 2023 for offences under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 I.P.C. by Dinesh Kumar against the applicant & four other persons on the basis of a recovery memo relating to recoveries made from three persons. The recoveries were of Aadhar cards, forged Aadhar cards, SIM cards, mobile, laptop, printer, thumb impression machines with the arrest of three accused namely Akash Ji Barnwal, Kanhiya Lal Jaiswal and Santosh Kumar Gupta. The matter was investigated and a charge-sheet dated 25.06.2023 was filed against Akash Ji Barnwal, Kanhiya Lal Jaiswal and Santosh Kumar Gupta for offences under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 I.P.C. Ashish Mishra and Anil Mishra were the persons arrayed in column 12 of the same in the persons not charge-sheeted. Subsequently a supplementary charge-sheet dated 08.08.2023 was filed against Ashish Mishra and Anil Mishra for offences under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 I.P.C. on which the court concerned took cognizance vide its order dated 30.10.2023. In so far as the first charge-sheet is concerned, cognizance was taken on the same vide order dated 11.09.2023 by the court concerned. The applicant has thus filed the present application under Section 482 Cr.P.C. with the aforesaid prayers. 7. Learned counsel for the applicant submitted that the lodging of the present first information report is an illegal act in as much as the same is a second first information report for the same offence for which a first information report was lodged as Case Crime No. 0240 of 2022. It is submitted that the recoveries on the basis of which the present first information report has been lodged are nothing else but a continuation of the previous case and as such the same could not have been lodged but at the most and at best the investigating agency could have submitted the first case with the additional evidence collected during investigation and proceeded with the matter. It is submitted that the lodging of the first information report of the present matter, filing of charge-sheet and supplementary charge-sheet, cognizance by the court concerned and summoning are thus bad in the eyes of law and deserves to be quashed. Learned counsel has placed before the Court judgement of the Apex Court in the case of Awadesh Kumar Jha @ Akhilesh Kumar Jha Vs. State of Bihar: (2016) 3 SCC 8 and while placing paragraph 25 has argued that the Apex Court has held that the well-settled principle of law is that there can be no second FIR in the event of any further information being received by the investigating agency in respect of the offence or the same occurrence or incident giving rise to one or more offfences for which charge-sheet has already been filed by the investigating agency. The recourse available with the investigating agency in the said situation is to conduct further investigation normally with the leave of the Court as provided under Section 173 (8) Cr.P.C. It is submitted that as such the proceedings deserves to be quashed in as much as the present proceedings are bad in the eyes of law. 8. Per contra, learned counsel for the State vehemently opposed the prayer for quashing and submitted that the present petition is devoid of any merits in as much as there is nothing available on record to show any connection between the incident of forging of data in the computer for which a first information report was lodged as Case Crime No. 0240 of 2022 against the named accused therein and the present case in which there have been recoveries of forged material in bulk quantity and even other appliances used for various purposes. It is submitted that both the offences are different and independent offences without any link in them. It is further submitted that since the incidents are totally different and are not linked with each other it cannot be said that the same was a further incident in which previous first information report was lodged and as such the argument is totally without any substance. 9. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties and perusing the records, it is evident that in so far as the first information report of Case Crime No. 0240 of 2022 is concerned, the same was lodged making Santosh Kumar Shukla as an accused who was the person responsible for verifying the details of the farmers by illegally resetting the credentials of the officials concerned. In so far as the present matter is concerned, the same relates to recoveries of forged documents and appliances used for making the said forged documents. The incidents are totally different and the offences are different & independent in themselves. The matter does not stand to the test of sameness and even on the test of any further information with regards to previous incident. 10. The present petition is thus devoid of any merits and is accordingly, dismissed. Order Date :- 8.7.2024 AS Rathore (Samit Gopal,J.)