Puran Lal @ Puran vs State of Uttaranchal (Uttarakhand) and Bhola

Prafulla C. Pant, J.—By means of this petition, moved u/s 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, (for short of Cr.P.C), the Petitioner has sought quashing of the proceedings of Criminal Case No. 16 of 2005 Bhola v. Tejpal Gupta, pending in the court of Judicial Magistrate, C.B.I, District Dehradun relating to offences punishable u/s 420 and 406 I.P.C.

Learned Counsel for the Petitioner submitted that complainant Bhola filed a criminal complaint before the trial court alleging that accused Tejpal (not Petitioner) took money from several persons namely Bhola (complainant), Mukesh, Sunil, Jayram, Kishanlal, Pradeep Kumar, Harbans, Vijay Kumar and one Sethi disappeared with the amount collected from the aforesaid persons. Petitioner''s case is that, he is resident of District Badaun and father in law of accused Tejpal Gupta. It is pleaded that he was simply been roped only for the reasons that he is father in law of Tejpal Gupta. The co accused is resident of Basant Bihar Dehradun.

However, on perusal of the copy of the criminal complaint (Annexure 2 to the petition), it is evident that complainant Bhola and the accused including the present Petitioner are permanent residents of District Badaun, and both of them have temporary addresses of Dehradun. As such it can not be said that the persons named in the complaint could not have taken money from the complainant.

In the opinion of this Court, it is for the trial court to examine whether the actually cheating was done by the accused as alleged in the criminal complaint or not. It is not desirable on the part of this Court to give its opinion on the basis of half baked evidence that the accused (present Petitioner) is innocent. Learned Counsel for the State pointed out that after investigation, in the similar report, already a charge sheet has been filed against accused Rakesh and Shyam Bihari, and names of Tejpal and Puran are shown as absconding accused. Copy of said charge sheet is Annexed as Annexure 1 to the petition.

Having heard learned Counsel for the parties, and after going through the papers on record, this Court, without prejudice to the rights of the parties, feels that it is not a fit case to interfere with the trial of the case in its jurisdiction u/s 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure

Therefore, the petition u/s 482 of Cr.P.C., is dismissed. Interim order dated 05.05.2005, is hereby vacated. Registry is directed to inform the court concerned.