RESERVED
Court No. - 51
Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. WRIT PETITION No. - 14700 of 2019
Petitioner :- Suresh Chandra Sharma And Another
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Indresh Kumar Mishra,Rakesh Pande (Sr.Adv.)
Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.
Hon'ble Vipin Sinha,J. Hon'ble Pankaj Bhatia,J.
Heard Sri Rakesh Pandey, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Indresh Kumar, learned counsel for the petitioners, Sri C. S. Singh, learned counsel for the complainant and learned A.G.A. for the State.
This writ petition has been filed with the prayer to issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned F. I. R. which has been registered as Case Crime No.
146 of 2019, under Section - 409 IPC, P.S.- Jawan, district- Aligarh.
Petitioner no. 1 alleges that he was working as an accountant in the Society and retired from the service of the Society on 31.12.2012. Subsequent to his retirement, the petitioner no. 1 contested the election of District Co-operative Bank Limited and was elected as a Director. It is further stated that the petitioner no.
1 was desirous of contesting the election of the District Co- operative Bank Limited, Aligarh again, however his nomination paper was rejected and an election petition filed before the Additional District Magistrate, Aligarh is still pending. He also alleges that one Sri Surendra Singh made a complaint to the Chief Executive Officer, Aligarh District Co-operative Bank alleging misappropriation of funds from the period 2012 to 2018 on which a Committee was constituted by the Chief Executive Officer. Sri Surendra Singh is also said to have made a complaint to the Commissioner/Registrar, Co-operative Cell, Lucknow, who also constituted a Committee on 20.9.2018 to submit its report. It is also brought on record that the inquiry instituted against the petitioner no. 1 was transferred to SIB/CID Co-operative and the present FIR has been lodged against the petitioner.
As regard petitioner no. 2, it has been alleged that he is the son of petitioner no. 1 and was also appointed as the accountant of the Kshetriya Sahkari Samiti, Godha Vikas Khand Jawan, Aligarh and was also authorized to do the work of Incharge Secretary. Petitioner no. 2 is said to have resigned from the services on 1.7.2014 and it is also stated that in the inquiry instituted, the petitioner no. 2 was also directed to submit his reply, which he did. It has been stated that as petitioner no. 2 has resigned in the year 2014, there was no chance of petitioner no. 2 being involved in any embezzled as alleged.
The main plank of the petitioner is that the FIR has been instituted with mala fides and has been filed on account of political rivalry with the allegation of misappropriation of funds amounting to Rs.118335436.27/-.
The averments made in the writ petition and the arguments advanced by Sri Rakesh Pandey do not make out any case for quashing for the FIR which prima facie discloses a congnizable offence. There is no material on record to substantiate the argument made by Sri Rakesh Pandey that the FIR is tainted with political motives. It is well settled law that the FIR can be quashed only on rarest of rare circumstances. From the plain reading of the FIR, it cannot be said that no offence can be made out. As such, this Court sees no reason to interfere in the matter as desired by the petitioner.
However, in case petitioners appear and surrender before the court below within 60 days from today and apply for bail, their prayer for bail shall be considered and decided in view of the settled law laid by this Court in the case of Amrawati and another Vs. State of U.P. reported in 2004 (57) ALR 290 as well as judgement passed by Hon'ble Apex Court reported in 2009 (3) ADJ 322 (SC) Lal Kamlendra Pratap Singh Vs. State of U.P. For a period of 60 days from today or till petitioners surrender and apply for bail, whichever is earlier, no coercive action shall be taken against petitioners. However, in case, petitioners do not appear before the Court below within the aforesaid period, coercive action shall be taken against them.
With the aforesaid observations, the writ petition is disposed of.
Order Date :- 31 .5.2019 Kuldeep