Court No. - 29
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. WRIT PETITION No. - 5275 of 2018 Petitioner :- Naresh Chaturvedi Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Amit Daga Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.
Hon'ble Vikram Nath,J. Hon'ble Ashok Kumar,J.
This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution has been filed by Naresh Chaturvedi, said to be presently posted as Senior Branch Manager at Punjab National Bank, Branch-CBB, Mathura praying for quashing of the First Information Report (FIR) dated 30.01.2018, registered as Case Crime No.71 of 2018, under sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 406 and 120-B IPC, Police Station Govind Nagar, District Mathura, filed as Annexure-1 to the writ petition. Further prayer made is for issuing appropriate direction to the respondents 1 to 3, police officials not to harass and arrest the petitioner pursuant to the aforementioned FIR.
A near accurate translation of the FIR, which is transcribed in Hindi, is reproduced below-
"Copy of the typed FIR by the complainant To SSP District Mathura Sir, this is to request that the applicant Smt. Suman Agarwal w/o Mr. Kanhaiya Lal Agarwal r/o C-4 Govind Nagar, Police Station- Govind Nagar near Shani Dev Mandir, District- Mathura alongwith her son Rishab Agarwal runs a cardboard factory in the name of Shri Ji Industries Tiwaripuram, Laxmi Nagar, Jamuna Park. When the applicant felt the need of installing advanced machines to increase production of her factory, she decided to purchase machines by taking a loan because of insufficient funds. In this regard the applicant and her son in the month of August 2017 met with Naresh Chaturvedi, Branch Manager, PNB. We discussed with the Manager regarding the loan related needs for the factory. Then we were introduced to Siddharth Khandelwal and Manuj Khandelwal s/o Sri Narendra Prakash Khandelwal by the Manager who were already sitting there and with whom we were already acquainted. They told us that their company MPK Motors Ltd. manufactures similar machines which we were demanding. All three of them started to assure us into buying their machines while talking in a similar way and we believed them. They insisted that I should talk with the Manager, he will give us an estimate and we after surveying your factory will grant you loan against the mortgage of any property provided by you. These people being the conspirator with their deceiving way of talks and a motive of cheating me approved my loan after taking my papers and being the conspirator, with an intention to nab the money from me, the Manager transferred ₹ 30,00,000/- Thirty Lakh Rupees in the account of MPK Motors, C-1 C, Industrial Area Refinery on 27.09.2017. This was communicated to us by Bank Manager, Mr. Chaturvedi. We reached Mathura Headquater of MPK Motors near Milan Cinema which is also their residence where we met Sri Narendra Prakash Khandelwal, father of Siddharth Khandelwal and Manuj Khandelwal, and we asked him that when will they provide us our machines, to that he told us that we import some part of the machines from Indore, only after fitting of these parts we will provide you the machines within 10 days and went on to say that they are being short of ₹ 3.90 lakh for the machines, if you will give us the amount we will return it to you after the completion of the machine. After giving us the assurance they sent us back. Having not received the machines according to their promise we went back to their office where these three people Siddharth Khandelwal, Manuj Khandelwal and their father Sri Narendra Prakash Khandelwal told us that we have an understanding with the Manager, we also have to give the Manager his share and when all this is organised then we will arrange the machines from somewhere. We won't give you the machines, do whatever you want. When we reached the Industrial Area Refinery located at C-1 C, we discovered that no factory for the manufacture of machines was existing and there was an empty plot. A cheque on 27.10.2017 was provided to us for the amount of ₹ 3.90 Lakh, which was withdrawn from us through RTGS, and when we deposited the Cheque to encash it on 04.01.2018 , the cheque bounced. Manager Naresh Chaturvedi was also aware of the fact that Siddharth Khandelwal and Manuj Khandelwal s/o Shri Narendra Prakash Khandelwal and one other son whose name is not known had no factories in operation and C.A. Anshul Maheshwari r/o Bhagyodaya Building, Mahavidya Colony, Phase 2, Mathura was also a part of this conspiracy.
Aforementioned people deliberately and fraudulently misused my documents and presented the documents of their sham factory like original documents and fraudulently sanctioned ₹ 30 lakh in the name of my firm and transferred it to the account of N.P.K. Firm and thereby they misappropriated the amount and even after a continuous demand, they neither delivered the machines to us yet nor returned any amount to the Bank. I complained about it numerous times but no action was taken, hence it is humbly requested to your goodself, to kindly lodge my complaint and take legal action thereupon. We will be highly obliged. Dated. 27.01.2018 complainant signed in English Suman Agarwal w/o Mr. Kanhaiya Lal Agarwal, Rishab Agarwal s/o Mr. Kanhaiya Lal Agarwal, Shri Ji Industries, Tiwaripuram, Jamuna Park, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, Mo. 9639207301.
Note-I CC 987 Anil Kumar certify that copy of the typed complainant is verbatim as presented."
From a perusal of the aforesaid facts as narrated in the FIR a prima facie cognizable offence is disclosed.
We have heard Sri Amit Daga, learned counsel for the petitioner, learned A.G.A. for the State respondents and perused the material on record.
Learned counsel for the petitioner vehemently contended that the petitioner has been falsely and for malafide reasons roped in as the petitioner had given notice to the informant for not setting up the machines to be purchased within time from the loan extended to her. It is also the submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner that the sanctioned loan of Rs.30 lakhs was transferred in the account of the informant (respondent no.4) and thereafter she had transferred the amount of Rs.32 lakhs in the account of M/s N.P.K. Motors. This included Rs.2 lakhs margin money contributed by the informant (respondent no.4) in addition to Rs.30 lakhs of the sanctioned loan.
On the other hand learned A.G.A. submitted that the allegations in the FIR being very specific and also providing necessary details, discloses prima facie case of cognizable offence and as such no case for interference is made out. Law is well settled that where an FIR discloses a cognizable offence the same cannot be quashed in a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. In the present case a bare perusal of the FIR discloses a cognizable offence. The matter needs to be investigated. The arguments advanced by Sri Daga referring to the documents attached to the petition and the averments made in the petition will be duly looked into by the Investigating Officer and this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution cannot comment on their genuineness or otherwise.
The petition lacks merit.
It is, accordingly, dismissed.
Order Date :- 28.2.2018 RPS