Harminder Singh and Others vs State of Uttaranchal and Another

Dharam Veer, J.—Heard Mr. Anil Dabral, Advocate for the petitioners, Mr. Amit Bhatt, Addl. GA for the State and Mr. Ramji Srivastava, Advocate for the respondent No. 2.

This petition u/s 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short, CrPC) has been filed for quashing the summoning order dated 7.5.2005 as well as the entire proceedings of Criminal Case No. 785/2005, State v. Harminder Singh and Ors. u/s 420 IPC pending in the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Dehradun.

Facts, in brief, are that on 28.1.2005, respondent No. 2 moved an application u/s 156(3) CrPC against the petitioners stating that he is engaged in the business of property dealing. On 26.2.2004, he saw an advertisement in a local daily about the sale of property and accordingly contacted the petitioner No. 1 on the same day over the telephone and also met him. Petitioner No. 1 showed him many properties which were not liked by the respondent No. 2. Then he telephoned the complainant/respondent No. 2 on 27.12.2004 and called him at his residence and told that he intend to sell the said property i.e. the land and the house constructed over it. When the respondent No. 2 asked the documents related to title of the said property, then the petitioner No. 1 called the other three petitioners and told that they along with Smt. Ranjana (younger brother''s wife of petitioner No. 1) are the owner of the said property and only they have got the right to sell it. When the complainant wanted to see the documents of the said property, he was asked by the petitioners to pay the token amount. The complainant accordingly paid rupees one lakh to the petitioners in the presence of his friend Narendra Gandhi. Thereafter petitioner No. 3 & 4 brought some documents and gave the same to the complainant. When the complainant contacted lawyers with those documents, he was told that no advice could be given without complete and original documents of the property. The complainant told this fact to the petitioner No. 1 but original and complete documents of the property were not supplied to the complainant, even the token amount of rupees one lakh was not returned to him. Thereafter on 10.1.2005, he issued notice through his Advocate to the petitioners and Smt. Ranjana for the return of the token money. Petitioners did not reply to the said notice. Only Smt. Ranjana replied it through her Advocate by saying that she does not want to sell that property and she had not given any authority to anybody to deal on her behalf. Thereafter the complainant came to know that Smt. Ranjana is the owner of half of the property and case in respect of the said property was already pending between her and the petitioners. The petitioners intentionally cheated him by inducement. It was also averred that he can produce the audio recording of his conversation with the petitioners. With these averments, an application u/s 156(3) CrPC was moved by the respondent No. 2 before the CJM, Dehradun, on which the Station Officer, PS Dalanwala was directed to lodge the report and investigate into the case. Thereafter an FIR was lodged by the respondent No. 2, on the basis of which, a case was registered against the petitioners u/s 420 IPC. After the investigation, the I.O. submitted a chargesheet against the petitioners and thereafter the CJM, Dehradun taken the cognizance of the offence against the petitioners and issued the summoning order dated 7.5.2005 against them.

Learned Counsel for the petitioners submitted that the petitioners have been falsely implicated in this case. I do not find any force in this argument due to the reason that from the perusal of the contents of FIR, statements of the witnesses recorded u/s 161 CrPC and other evidence collected by the I.O., a prima facie case is made out against the petitioners u/s 420 IPC. It transpires that Smt. Ranjana is the owner of half of the property and case between her and the petitioners was already pending in respect of the said property, but even then the petitioners tried to sell the entire disputed property to the respondent No. 2 and had taken rupees one lakh as a token money but he could not gave the original and complete documents relating to the title of the property. Even the token money was not returned to the respondent No. 2. Thus, it is apparent that the dispute involves factual question which cannot be decided by this Court. The dispute can be decided only after adducing the oral and the documentary evidence by the parties before the trial court. It cannot be decided by this Court only on the basis of papers filed on the record.

Even otherwise, the trial court will decide the case after recording the evidence of the complainant as well as of the accused and also on the basis of the appreciation of the evidence as per law. If the allegations made in the FIR and the evidence collected by the Investigating Officer and the statements of witnesses recorded by the I.O. during the course of investigation are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, I am of the view that the petitioners have rightly been summoned. The trial court will decide the case after recording the evidence adduced before it. I am of the view that in the present case there is neither any miscarriage of justice nor any abuse of process of Court.

The petitions lack merit and are liable to be dismissed.

Accordingly, the petition is hereby dismissed. Interim order dated 16.9.2005 stands vacated.