David Kerketta vs State of Jharkhand

Vikramaditya Prasad, J.—This application u/s 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been filed for quashing the criminal proceeding against the petitioner, who is an accused in Dhanbad P.S. Case No. 518 of 1997, pending in the Court of Shri Vijay Kumar No. 1, Judicial Magistrate, Dhanbad.

Short fact of the case is that one Sampat Kumar Singh applied for sanction of loan of Rs. 20,000/- from his G.P.F. accumulation and the said amount was sanctioned to him and the cheque for Rs. 20,000/- was issued to be paid in his account but lateron the said Account payee cheque was converted into bearer cheque and the cheque was issued to Sampat Kumar Sinha on the identification of one Dilip Singh. The endorsement beneath the receipt by Sampat Kumar Singh has been found out which caste doubt about the complicity of the accused Binesh Chandra Sinha. The cheque was converted into bearer cheque by the Account Officer and the Secretary and as such, the complicity of the accused Anirudh Chandra Sinha and David Kerketta cannot be ruled out as if the cheque would not have been converted into bearer cheque the amount would have been deposited in the account of the subscriber and the entire file has been dealt by the dealing assistant Gouri Shankar Prasad who is also said to have deposited the embezzled amount in the account of the subscriber and thus, the First Information was lodged.

My attention was drawn to the order passed by a Bench of this Court in Cr. Misc. 5078 of 1999(R) vide Annexure-3 appended to this application, in which one of co-accused namely, Anirudh Chandra Sinha against whom exactly similar allegation, the proceeding was quashed and, therefore, it has been argued that since the case of this petitioner is exactly on the same footing, so, the proceeding against him may also be quashed.

On the cheque there was signature of the Account Officer as well as of this petitioner, who was the secretary of Mineral Area Development Authority, Dhanbad (hereinafter referred to as M.A.D.A. for short) and there was nothing to show that this petitioner had acted in any way, for drawing some amount and that was also the case of petitioner Anirudh Chandra Sinha of Cr. Misc. No. 5078 of 1999(R), who was the Account Officer and regarding whom the proceeding has been quashed. The sanction against this petitioner is also wanting as was in the case of the Account Officer against whom proceeding has been quashed.

In view of the decision reported in State through C.B.I. v. B.L. Verma and Anr. 1997 (1) SCC 772 in which it has been held that for want of sanction also the order of cognizance cannot be said to be legal, this application is allowed and the entire criminal prosecution against the petitioner pending in the Court below is hereby quashed.