This revision has been preferred assailing the validity of order dated 24.9.2013 passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bareilly relating to Case Crime No. 2465 of 2013 (State Vs. Alok and others) under Section 420, 506 IPC, P.S. Kotwali, Bareilly whereby the application seeking the release of the seized accounts in favour of society has been rejected.
Notice was issued and served but none appears on behalf of opposite party no.2 even in the revised call nor any power on behalf of opposite party no.2 has been filed. Learned AGA is present who has already filed counter affidavit which is on record. Rejoinder affidavit has already been exchanged.
Heard Sri P.K. Upadhyay learned counsel for the revisionist and the learned AGA. The record of the case and the impugned order has been perused.
The submission of the counsel is that the initial FIR which was lodged by opposite party No.2, Abhishek Singh related to only an amount of Rs. one lac which according to the version of first informant was due to be paid to him but which was being denied to him by the Office Bearers of the society, therefore, the seizure of the two banks' accounts having huge amount of money was not justified and, therefore, the court below should have allowed the application seeking the release and by not doing so has wrongly rejected the application.
In rebuttal learned AGA has submitted that though it is true that the matter got initiated by the aforesaid FIR moved by one Abhishek Singh who was aggrieved by the non payment of his salary but when the investigation of the case was taken up, the facts which surfaced were not only very alarming but also disclosed several serious offences which were being committed by the aforesaid society whose accounts have been seized and as the investigation of the case was still going on and an enormous amount of bungling and fraud has been discovered, the release of the accounts would have been extremely detrimental to the larger interest of the public whose hard earned money has been deceitfully obtained by the unscrupulous activities of the society and it shall be very difficult later on to retrieve back the same as it has also come to the knowledge of the investigating officer that the Office Bearers of the society were busy in transferring the amount of money to other sister concern in order to siphon it off.
The learned AGA has also placed before the Court many more facts relating to the investigation which have also been filed by way of filing the counter affidavit which is on record. The contention of the learned AGA that the impugned order is perfectly valid and any other order would have defeated the ends of justice.
The perusal of the record reveals that the modus operandi of the aforesaid society seems to have been the offering of exorbitant interest rates or high rates of return on the deposits and by floating several such schemes which were so likely to dupe the innocent people at large. It also appears that the aforesaid company, BCCSL is not registered in or affiliated with the Reserve Bank of India. It also seems to have surfaced during investigation that the aforesaid society BCCSL used to issue petro cards for certain considerations and in lieu of the same an offer to give petrol of a value of Rs. 100/- per day for the whole year regularly was given. It was also part of the offer that after the end of five years the the subscribers will get Rs. 20,000/-. In order to popularize this scheme public was made to believe that the scheme was in collaboration of ICICI Bank but by of investigation it was discovered that the issue of such petro cards were nothing but cheating and fraud. In this regard the statements of office bearers of ICICI Bank were also recorded. The investigating officer also collected material during investigation and recorded statements of the aggrieved persons who fell victim to the aforesaid fraud. The most alarming and disturbing thing which came to the knowledge of the investigating officer was that just a day after lodging of the first information report, rupees one crore was transferred by a demand draft No. 216608 dated 3.9.2013 in a firm, namely, M/s Bhabhishya Real Home Developers Pvt. Ltd which was a sister concern of BCCSL. According to the claim of the investigating officer, there was sufficient documentary evidence to reveal that the higher management of BCCSL as well as M/s Bhabhish Real Home Developer Pvt Ltd is common and have a close proximate nexus in between them.
I find force in the submission made by the learned AGA that had the aforesaid bank accounts not being seized, the aforesaid company would have successfully taken away the amount deposited in the bank account. There are several elaborate details of the investigation which have been brought on record by filing the counter affidavit. The revisionist has tried to meet out some of them by way of projecting his defence and has also filed rejoinder affidavit. But the issue boils down to this-whether the court below has made any error the impugned order refusing to allow the release application moved on behalf of Sri Arvind Mehta who is said to be the Secretary of the aforesaid society. The impugned order reveals that the Chief Judicial Magistrate has taken into account the fact that the investigation of the case discloed the commission of offences under Sections 406, 466, 468 and 471 IPC. It has also been taken into account by the court below that Arvind Mehta has himself been made an accused during the course of investigation and that the public at large had been deceitfully duped to deposit money.
In the aforesaid circumstances it was not found proper, in the opinion of the Court to order the release of the accounts which were seized on the request of the police.
I think that there is absolutely no illegality, impropriety or incorrectness in the impugned order and the same has been rightly passed after due appreciation of judicial mind. No interference is called forth.
The revision being sans merit stands rejected.
Order Date :- 28.3.2014 MT**