Hon'ble Jaspreet Singh,J.
The Court has been convened through video conferencing.
Heard Ms. Nutan Thakur, learned counsel for the petitioners, Ms. Nand Prabha Shukla, learned A.G.A. for the State and perused the impugned F.I.R. as well as material brought on record.
The present writ petition has been filed by the petitioners, namely, Ramesh Kumar Gupta & others, seeking quashing of the F.I.R. No.0055 of 2021, under Section 406 I.P.C., Police Station Kotwali, District Barabanki and for directing the authority concerned to transfer the case to any other district.
It has been argued by learned counsel for the petitioners that the petitioners are businessmen. Petitioner no.2 is the wife of petitioner no.1 whereas the petitioner no.3 is the real brother of petitioner no.1. The petitioners came in contact with respondent no.5, namely, Kush Saurabh, who is a retired police officer in Provincial Police Service in early months of the year 2018 and respondent no.5, being a retired police officer, showed his keenness in land business deals etc., meaning thereby that he had earned ill gotten wealth and land etc. and soon thereafter the petitioners and respondent no.5 developed good relationship on personal level and started dealing in different kinds of business and various business transactions took place between them and during the course of which money used to be exchanged between the parties.
It is next submitted that respondent no.5 had nefarious intent in his mind, therefore, on several occasions he and his wife Mrs. Chandra Prabha Saurabh gave money to the petitioners through cheques and in their own turn, they insisted on to get money in cash. In this process the respondent no.5 became an influential and valuable money client of the petitioners and the petitioners reposed faith in him and the petitioners accepted his demand for being paid money in cash. This went on for quite sometime during which period both the petitioners and respondent no.5 entered into various transactions during the course of which they gave and took money to each other where respondent no.5 and his wife often gave money through cheques and sometimes in cash and they on their own turn usually insisted on getting money from the petitioners in cash, the said fact has been mentioned in paragraph nos.3 and 4 of the writ petition. But thereafter some dispute arose between them and their relationship became uncordial. Two FIRs were lodged by wife of respondent no.5 against the petitioners bearing FIR Nos.0346 of 2020 under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471, 506 I.P.C. on 13.12.2020 at Police Station Gudamba, District Lucknow against petitioner no.3 and another FIR No.0475 of 2020, under Sections 147, 406, 420, 504, 506 I.P.C. was also lodged by wife of respondent no.5 on 27.12.2020 at the same Police Station Gudamba, District Lucknow on the same very allegations which were levelled in the earlier FIR and both the FIRs are pending investigation. He submitted that the present impugned FIR has been lodged against the petitioners by respondent no.5 with oblique motive and blackmailing purposes.
Learned A.G.A., on the other hand, has opposed the prayer for quashing the impugned FIR and submitted that the petitioners in para 5 of the present writ petition have admitted the fact that the petitioners accepted money from the respondent no.5 who has earned the same through illegal means in their business. It appears that thereafter dispute arose between the parties with respect to the payment made to each other. The earlier two FIRs were lodged by wife of respondent no.5 and the impugned FIR has been lodged by respondent no.5 for the offence in question which is alleged to have been committed by the petitioners and the FIR discloses a cognizable offence and the petition is liable to be dismissed.
After having examined the submissions advanced by learned counsel for the parties and perused the impugned FIR, we are of the opinion that the impugned FIR discloses cognizable offence against the petitioners, hence, no interference is called for by this Court in its extraordinary power under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for quashing of the FIR or for grant of any interim relief to the petitioners, as the petitioners themselves have already admitted in para 5 of the petition that the petitioners have taken ill gotten money from the respondent no.5 and in order to covert the same into white money it was invested in their business, hence the conduct of the petitioners were not fair.
The petition lacks merit and is, accordingly, dismissed.
The party shall file computer generated copy of order downloaded from the official website of High Court Allahabad, self attested by it alongwith a self attested identity proof of the said person(s) (preferably Aadhar Card) mentioning the mobile number(s) to which the said Aadhar Card is linked, before the concerned Court/Authority/Official.
The concerned Court/Authority/Official shall verify the authenticity of the computerized copy of the order from the official website of High Court Allahabad and shall make a declaration of such verification in writing.
Order Date :- 31.5.2021 Anand/-