Court No. - 81
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 55014 of 2019 Applicant :- Meena Yadav Opposite Party :- State of U.P.
Counsel for Applicant :- Shiv Sagar Singh Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A. connected with Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. BAIL APPLICATION No. - 55021 of 2019 Applicant :- Man Singh Yadav Opposite Party :- State of U.P.
Counsel for Applicant :- Shiv Sagar Singh Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.
Hon'ble Dinesh Kumar Singh-I,J.
Heard Sri Shiv Sagar Singh, learned counsel for the applicants and Sri B.A. Khan, learned A.G.A. for the State and perused the record.
These bail applications (under Section 438 Cr.P.C.) have been moved seeking bail in Case Crime No. 421 of 2013, under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 120B IPC and Section 13 of the P.C. Act, 1988 Police Station Kasna, District Gautam Budh Nagar, during the pendency of trial.
The submission made by the learned counsel for the applicants is that applicants have been falsely implicated. They are apprehending arrest in the above mentioned crime number. They have no criminal antecedents. The applicants were named in the F.I.R. The applicants are Director of the Company namely "Rajneesh Corporate Services Private Ltd." which engages in supply of man-power with few ancillary works such as civil construction which was incorporated on 9.8.2002 and has been running successfully since then and not a sham Company. There is not an iota of evidence to disclose that the applicants' Company is a sham Company by which it has caused huge financial and monitory loss to the Company. The Company has been under the credit facility system to the tune of Rs. 1,00,00,000/- sanctioned by the State Bank of Patiyala, now merged with S.B.I. since 1.4.2017. The police officials had started making fishing and roaving inquiries from the applicants, which led them to move a petition i.e. Crl. Misc.
Writ Petition No. 17834 of 2018 seeking quashing of F.I.R. No. 421 of 2018, which was dismissed vide order dated 9.7.2018 of this Court. Police after investigation has submitted charge sheet bearing no. 291 of 2018 on 18.9.2018 in which names of applicants were not mentioned nor any evidence was found against them. The applicants were fully co-operating with the investigating agency but to their utter surprise, in a fraudulent manner, an application dated 7.1.2019 was moved before the Ld. Special Court, Anti-corruption, Meerut, for issuing non- bailable warrant against the applicants, which was allowed and non-bailable warrants were issued against the accused- applicants. Thereafter applicants resorted to seek protection from this Court by moving an Application u/s 482 Cr.P.C. No. 5286 of 2019 seeking quashing of the proceedings emanating from the F.I.R. No. 421 of 2018 dated 3.6.2018 which was disposed of providing liberty to the applicants to move a discharge application. In compliance with the said order dated 8.2.2019, a discharge application was moved despite names of the accused-applicants not being in F.I.R. or in charge sheet, therefore the same was dismissed on the ground that no discharge was possible against the applicants as no charge sheet had been submitted against them under Section 173(2) Cr.P.C. Thereafter, police officials started threatening the family members of the applicants since somewhere from October 2019 they were trying to force them to become prosecution witnesses which was opposed by the applicants and they sought remedy available under law of anticipatory bail under Section 438 Cr.P.C. directly before the High Court vide Crl. Misc. Anticipatory Bail Application Bearing No. 49061 of 2019 which was decided vide order dated 14.11.2019 stating that appropriate application for the said relief be moved before the Ld. Special Court, Anti-Corruption, Merrut, prior to moving the said application. In compliance with this Court's order dated 14.11.2019, the applicants moved an application under Section 438 Cr.P.C. before the Special Judge, Anti-corruption, Meerut on 22.11.2019 despite the fact that there was no charge sheet filed against them and even in second charge sheet dated 12.3.2019, names of the applicants were not there. Ld. Special Court was repeatedly requested to hear the matter on urgent basis as the police were harassing but the said court kept the matter pending and the said matter could be heard only on 27.11.2019 and the order was passed eight days thereafter rendering the purpose of moving the anticipatory bail application to be futile. All the accused-applicants, who have been charge sheeted, have been granted bail. The conduct of the police officials has created sufficient apprehension in the mind of the applicants that they might be arrested and be deprived of their personal liberty. There is no question of their absconding or tampering with the evidence. They were fully available at their residence to co-operate with the investigation and would cooperate undoubtedly, therefore applicants may be released on anticipatory bail. Two co-accused namely, Gaurav Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar have been granted bail by the co-ordinate Bench of this Court in Crl. Misc. Bail Application No. 9458 of 2019 and Crl. Misc. Bail Application No. 5072 of 2019 vide order dated 4.4.2019 and 12.3.2019 respectively.
Counter affidavit has been filed from the side of opposite party no. 2, by one Sri Sharad Chandra Sharma, C.O., P.S. Jewar, District Gautam Budh Nagar, wherein he has stated that F.I.R. in this case has been lodged after preliminary enquiry conducted by Meena Bhargava and the main allegation against the accused-applicants are that under conspiracy, they had purchased land from the original tenure holders on lesser price within a short span of time and the same land had been sold to the Authority i.e. Yamuna Expressway Authority of India and on account of which the State has suffered great financial loss and the offence falls in the category of financial scam. The investigating officer has obtained a list of beneficiaries, who have sold land to Yamuna Express Way Authority of India, which was purchased for construction of Ramp for entry and exit to the Highway and also to provide seven percent development land for those villagers, whose land had been occupied/acquired by the State for construction of the Highway. The applicants are Directors of Rajneesh Corporate Services Private Ltd. Company, which has purchased Plot/Khata No. 19 Khasra No. 480, 484, 502, 478, 479, having total area of 1.714 hectares from one Lokendra Singh, who executed sale deed on 30.8.2014 in favour of the applicants having share of 1/9th in the said holdings and the sale consideration as mentioned in the sale deed is Rs. 16,25,000/-. The said sale deed was witnessed by Dalveer Singh and Shyoraj Singh. The sale deed in favour of Authority has been executed on 18.12.2014 within four months and this time the sale consideration was fixed at Rs. 33,66,618/- which shows that accused-applicants had taken more than double the amount within four months from the first sale deed. Further it is mentioned that total amount received by the offending Company is Rs. 88.04 lacs and the company had executed sale deed on 10.12.2014 by which an area of Khata No. 65, Khasra No. 384, having area 0.375 hectare at total consideration of Rs. 54,37,159/- has been sold to the Yamuna Expressway Authority. In this sale deed, there is no mention made as to for what consideration the land was purchased by the Company, therefore the investigating officer was not in a position to disclose as to what was the quantum of beneficiaries by which the Company had benefited. Further it is mentioned that applicants are not responding to the investigation whereupon a prayer was made before the court below to issue non-bailable warrants against the accused and that only in order to delay the investigation, the accused have deliberately filed an Application u/s 482 alleging that charge sheet has been filed although no such charge sheet has been filed against the applicants. They have obtained order dated 8.2.2019 pursuant to which when they filed discharge application even that was dismissed by the court below since there was no charge sheet filed. It is further mentioned that accused are absconding and because of that reason, they were declared absconders by the court below vide order dated 29.1.2019 of the Special Court Anti-corruption, Court No. 2, Meerut, proclamation under Section 82 Cr.P.C. has been annexed as CA-2. It is further mentioned that in case of Lavesh Vs. N.C.T. Delhi reported in 2012, the Hon'ble Apex Court held in paragraph 10 that if a person is declared a proclaimed offendor and the process under Section 82 Cr.P.C. has been issued, then he would not be entitled to get anticipatory bail, in view of that the present application was not maintainable. It is further mentioned that from the very beginning, applicants are playing hide and seek game despite being fully aware about the issuance of process under Section 82 Cr.P.C. The investigation is still in progress to ascertain the quantum of amount by which the accused- applicants have been benefited for which custodial interrogation is required. The applicants are economic offenders, who have created loss to the State Exchequer and in the recent judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court delivered in case of P. Chidambrama, it has been held that economic offence would destroy the roots of the country and State and that no sympathetic consideration is required in such matters. Further it is mentioned that if the accused is given protection, they would misuse the liberty of bail and would try to tamper with the evidence. The sale deed by which the land was sold to the Yamuna Express Way Authority of India was not being provided by them to the Investigating Officer, therefore from all angles, the applications of applicants are devoid of merit and needs to be dismissed/rejected.
It is orally further argued by the learned counsel for the applicants that this is a false averment on behalf of the C.B.I. that applicants were absconders because order dated 8.2.2019 was passed by this Court in application u/s 482 Application No. 5286 of 2019, in which, they were given time of one month to move discharge application before the court below and that the trial court was directed to consider all grounds raised in the discharge application and decide the same within a period of three months and till the discharge application was decided, it was directed that no coercive action would be taken against the applicants, therefore, it cannot be said that applicants had not surrendered to the Authority of Court and that when they did not appear before the Investigating Agency, it was only because of the protection granted to them by this Court and there was no intention to not co-operate with the investigating agency and were ready to submit all the documentary evidence which they possess in order to facilitate the investigation. Further attention was drawn to the page 120 to 124 of the paper book in order to show that Company of the applicants was not a sham Company rather the same was incorporated under the Companies Act and they were performing the business in accordance with law/rules and that there were no likelihood of accused-applicants absconding. It was also argued that the allegation that applicants had sold sale deeds at double the price of price at which the said land was purchased is also a false averment because at the time of sale, new law by the name Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, had come in force in which there is a provision of offering compensation at double the price of earlier compensation, hence it cannot be said that applicants had committed any offence as alleged in the F.I.R. and in this conspectus it is prayed that anticipatory bail should be granted to the accused-applicants.
After having perused the record and having heard the rival contentions, this Court is of the view that there are allegations to the effect against the applicants that their Company, registered by the name "Rajneesh Corporate Services Private Ltd." of which the applicants were Directors, had acquired land in conspiracy with other co-accused in order to gain undue monitory advantage from those villagers, whose land had been occupied by the State for construction of the Highway. After having purchased the said land from the villagers at low price, the same was sold to the Yamuna Expressway Authority of India at double the price, and thus huge illegal profit was earned causing loss to the State Exchequer. In counter affidavit, it has come on record that one sale deed relating to Plot/Khata No. 19 Khasra No. 480, 484, 502, 478, 479 having total area of 1.714 hectare, its sale deed was got executed from one Lokendra Singh on 30.8.2014 for a consideration of Rs. 16,25,000/- and later on the sale deed of the same land was executed by the applicants' Company in favour of Yamuna Express Way Authority of India on 18.12.2014 i.e. within four months period at a much higher rate i.e. Rs. 33,66,618. In respect of other piece of land, relating to Khata No. 65, Khasra No. 384 having total area 0.375 hectare, it is stated from the side of prosecution that it is unable to ascertain because of lack of sale deed which is not being provided by the accused to ascertain as to how much profit has been earned out of the said transaction and that accused are not co-operating in this regard because of which a warrant was prayed to be issued against the accused-applicants. In pursuance of which, the trial court has issued process u/s 82 Cr.P.C. as well as non bailable warrants which clearly show that applicants were not co-operating with the investigating agency and because of that reason the total amount is still to be ascertained by which the applicants have been benefited. It has also come on record that earlier the applicants had come to this Court in application u/s 482 bearing no. 5286 of 2019 in which an order for moving discharge application before the court concerned was granted and it was further directed that no coercive action shall be taken till the disposal of discharge application. The said application was also prematurely moved because the accused knew that there was no charge sheet filed against him and there could be no possibility of maintainability of discharge application and accordingly the trial court has rejected the discharge application. Dispute is being raised from the side of applicant that the amount for which the land has been sold by their Company to the Authority was in accordance with law in view of Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which is also a matter of evidence, no finding in that regard can be rendered by this Court in proceedings.
In view of these facts, looking to the fact that applicants do not appear to be cooperate with the investigating officer and are finding one way or the other to avoid appearing before the investigating agency, this is not found to be a fit case in which anticipatory bail should be granted. Accordingly, it is Rejected.
Order Date :- 16.12.2019 A.P. Pandey