High Court
Case Details
Court No. - 81 Case :- APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 18857 of 2021 Applicant :- Dheer Saran Opposite Party :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Applicant :- Sunita Chauhan Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A. Hon'ble Mrs. Manju Rani Chauhan,J.
Legal Reasoning
In view of the aforesaid, this Court does not deem it proper, and therefore cannot be persuaded to have a pre-trial before the actual trial begins. A threadbare discussion of various facts and circumstances, as they emerge from the allegations made against the accused, is being purposely avoided by the Court for the reason, lest the same might cause any prejudice to either side during trial. But it shall suffice to observe that the perusal of the F.I.R. and the material collected by the Investigating Officer on the basis of which the charge sheet has been submitted makes out a prima facie case against the accused at this stage and there appear to be sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused. I do not find any justification to quash the charge sheet or the proceedings against the applicants arising out of them as the case does not fall in any of the categories recognized by the Apex Court which may justify their quashing. The prayer for quashing the impugned charge-sheet dated 06.09.2020 as well as the entire proceedings of the aforesaid case are refused, as I do not see any abuse of the court's process at this pre-trial stage. The present application has no merit and is, accordingly, rejected. Order Date :- 8.8.2022 Jitendra/- Digitally signed by JITENDRA KUMAR YADAV Date: 2022.08.25 16:51:51 IST Reason: Location: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad
Arguments
Heard Mr. Dev Raj Singh, Advocate holding brief of Ms. Sunita Chauhan, learned counsel for the applicant, Mr. Pankaj Srivastava, learned AGA for the State and perused the records. The present 482 Cr.P.C. application has been filed to quash the charge-sheet dated 06.09.2020 as well as the entire proceedings of Case No.9277 of 2020 (State Vs. Mohd. Zakir and another), arising out of Case Crime No. 806 of 2018, under Sections 420, 406, 468, 471 I.P.C., Police Station-Civil Lines, District- Aligarh, pending in the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Aligarh. Learned counsel for the applicants submits that an FIR was lodged on 18.12.2018 by Rahul Varshney against Mohd. Zakir and officials and staff of Monad University with the allegations that Mohd. Zakir, Director of G.L.B. Academy, Medical Road, Aligarh was providing education to students by the assistance of Monad University, Hapur. In August, 2012, the informant approached Mohd. Zakir for pursuing M.Tech course from his academy for which, he paid Rs.1,40,000/-. After completion of two years course, when the informant went requesting for his marksheet, degree as well as migration certificate, he was provided the marksheet whereas for other documents, he was asked to approach Monad University, Hapur. Though the informant approached the Registrar of the aforesaid University for rest of the documents as advised by Mohd. Zakir, but he could not get those documents. Thereafter, the applicant made several efforts from college to University but nothing was done, thus he realized that some fraud has been played by Mohd. Zakir and employees of the college as well as University concerned. When the informant came to know about the forgery, a false FIR was lodged against him by one K.P. Singh regarding forged document as was placed by him. Therefore, the present FIR has been lodged against Mohd. Zakir and officials as well as employees of the Monad University, Hapur. Learned counsel for the applicant further submits that the applicant is not named in the FIR and his name surfaced in the Majeed statement given by Mohd. Zakir, however, in the first statement of Mohd. Zakir, he has denied all the allegations made against him in the FIR. He further submits that there is no credible evidence against the applicant for his involvement in the incident as well as communication with Mohd. Zakir, Director of the said academy, who had cheated the informant. He further submits that no offence under the relevant section is made out against the applicant. He pointed out certain documents and statements in support of his contention. He, therefore, submits that the charge-sheet, summoning order as well as entire proceedings be quashed by this Court as the same is an abuse process of Court. Per contra, learned A.G.A. submits that the application U/s 482 Cr.P.C. for quashing the proceedings cannot be entertained at this stage when the FIR as well as charge sheet goes to show that the offence as alleged has been made out. Learned counsel for the applicant has not been able to show any evidence from the record that he was in no way involved in the admission of the informant in the Monard University, Hapur as there is no reason for disbelieving the majeed statement as given by Mohd. Zakir. He further submits that all the contentions raised by the applicant's counsel relate to disputed questions of fact. On the basis of material on record after conducting of statutory investigation under Chapter XII Cr.P.C. by the investigating officer, a strong prima facie case is made out against the applicant for the commission of the alleged incident. In support of his case, learned AGA has placed reliance upon the judgments of the Apex Court in the case of Dilbag Rai Vs. State of Haryana & Others reported in AIR 2019 (SC) 693 and Central Bureau of Investigation Vs. Arvind Khanna reported in MANU/SC/1432/2019. I have considered the submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the records of the present application. This Court finds that the submissions made by the applicants' learned counsel call for adjudication on pure questions of fact which may adequately be adjudicated upon only by the trial court and while doing so even the submissions made on points of law can also be more appropriately gone into by the trial court in this case. The issue whether it is appropriate for this Court being the Highest Court to exercise its jurisdiction under Section 482 Cr.P.C. to quash the charge-sheet and the proceedings at the stage when the Magistrate has merely issued process against the applicants and trial is to yet to come only on the submission made by the learned counsel for the applicants that present criminal case initiated by opposite party no.2 are not only malicious but also abuse of process of law has elaborately been discussed by the Apex Court in the following judgments:- (i) R.P. Kapur Versus State of Punjab; AIR 1960 SC 866, (ii) State of Haryana & Ors. Versus Ch. Bhajan Lal & Ors.;1992 Supp.(1) SCC 335, (iii) State of Bihar & Anr. Versus P.P. Sharma & Anr.; 1992 Supp (1) SCC 222, (iv) Zandu Pharmaceuticals Works Ltd. & Ors. Versus Mohammad Shariful Haque & Anr.; 2005 (1) SCC 122, (v) M. N. Ojha Vs. Alok Kumar Srivastava; 2009 (9) SCC 682, (vi) Mohd. Allauddin Khan Vs. The State of Bihar & Others; 2019 0 Supreme (SC) 454, (vii) Nallapareddy Sridhar Reddy Vs. The State of Andhra Pradesh & Ors.; 2020 0 Supreme (SC) 45, and laslty (ix) Rajeev Kaurav Vs. Balasahab & Others; 2020 0 Supreme (SC) 143.