Court No. - 33
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. WRIT PETITION No. - 1927 of 2019 Petitioner :- Kiran Shankar Prasad And 3 Others Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Manish Dev Singh Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.,Praveen Kumar Srivastava Hon'ble Manoj Misra,J. Hon'ble Vivek Varma,J.
Heard Sri Manish Dev Singh, learned counsel for the petitioners; learned AGA for the respondent nos. 1, 2 and 3; Sri Praveen Kumar Srivastava, learned counsel for the respondent no.4 and perused the record.
The instant petition seeks quashing of the First Information Report dated 10.12.2018, which has been registered as Case Crime No. 0307 of 2018, under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471, 506 IPC, Police Station Chetganj, District Varanasi.
The allegation in the FIR, which has been lodged by the fourth respondent, is that the informant is great grand son of late Jai Shankar Prasad. His grand father, Late Ratna Shanker Prasad divested his son from succession by executing a registered will dated 27.10.1994, but a forged will dated 21.12.1998 was set up by the accused, got executed through some imposter, and by setting up the forged will, a Mutation Case No. 417 of 2009 was filed and mutation obtained. It is alleged in the FIR that the testator was a renowned personality having pass-port issued in his name and was recipient of various awards and had been photographed several times from which it will be clear that the disputed will did not carry photographs of the testator and, therefore, the will appears to be forged.
Learned counsel for the petitioners has sought quashing of the FIR by claiming that the will is a registered document; that admittedly the will was set up for the first time in the year 2009 whereas the FIR has been lodged after about 10 years; and that the person in whose favour the will had been executed was admittedly the son of the testator and, therefore, there is every possibility that the testator may have changed his mind before his death and executed a will in favour of his son.
Be that as it may, as the allegation in the FIR is to the effect that imposter was set up for execution of the will and the will does not carry signature of the testator a prima facie case for investigation of the matter has been made out and, therefore, the prayer of the petitioners to quash the FIR cannot be accepted.
However, looking to the facts of the case, as also that the will was set up in the mutation case in the year 2009, whereas the FIR had been lodged after a decade, we deem it appropriate to dispose of this petition by providing that the investigation shall continue and be brought to its logical conclusion, but the petitioners shall not be arrested in the aforesaid case, till submission of police report under Section 173 (2) Cr.P.C.
It is made clear that the petitioners shall co-operate with the investigation.
It is also clarified that we have not expressed any opinion on the merits of the allegation as well as the defence of the petitioners.
The petition stands disposed off.
Order Date :- 29.1.2019 Lbm/-