Yograj Saini vs State Of Uttarakhand & Another

Alok Mahra, J

By means of this criminal misc. application under Section 482 Cr.P.C., applicant has sought quashing of charge sheet No.98/12, dated 09.12.2012 as well as entire proceedings of Criminal Case No. 224 of 2013, under Section 420, 467, 468, 471 & 120-B of I.P.C., pending in the Court of IInd Additional Civil Judge (Junior Division)/Judicial Magistrate, Dehradun.

Facts of the case, in a nutshell, are that an F.I.R. was lodged by respondent no.2 against three persons, alleging therein that they have sold the land of the complainant by executing a forged sale deed by impersonating him and, in lieu thereof, grabbed a sum of ₹20,00,000/- from the purchasers towards sale consideration. In the F.I.R., it is alleged that complainant has not sold the said land to anyone and he is the actual owner of the property in question and that alleged purchasers of the said land have also taken a loan from the bank for purchasing the land of the complainant. During investigation, name of the applicant came into light and, upon investigation, Investigating Officer filed charge-sheet No. 98/12, dated 09.12.2012 against the applicant, under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 & 120-B of I.P.C. Learned Judicial Magistrate took cognizance in the matter and summoned the accused persons to face trial. Thus, feeling aggrieved, applicant has approached this Court.

Learned counsel for the applicant submits that the applicant is not named in the F.I.R.; that complainant’s land was sold to the persons in joint names of Mr. Ranvir Singh & Smt. Komal in the presence of two other witnesses and the applicant was not present at the time of execution of the sale deed; that there are no signatures of the applicant on the alleged forged sale deed dated 17.06.2010, thus, the applicant has never been the beneficiary of the alleged sale deed, except for fact that one of the accused named in the F.I.R. was the servant of the applicant, who had expired during investigation; that purchasers of the alleged land had obtained the loan of ₹15,00,000/- from District Cooperative Bank, Dehradun on the guarantee of Mr. Sanjay S/o Sri Mukandi Lal and Smt. Sunita W/o Sanjay and the applicant was, in no way, associated with the purchasers of the said land or with the District Cooperative Bank and the applicant had never signed any document in support of sanctioning the loan to accused/purchasers of the land; that, Inquiry Officer, in the Inquiry Report dated 06.09.2012, has stated that the accused in the instant case are Mr. Ranvir and Smt. Komal, whose actual names are Sunil Kumar and Smt. Kiran and other main accused is Mr. Prakash Singh, who was the servant of the applicant; that P.W.-1, P.W.-2 and P.W.-3, in their testimony before the trial Court, did not support the prosecution story and has not assigned any specific role to the applicant in the instant crime.

Per contra, learned State Counsel as well as learned counsel appearing for respondent no.2 submit that although applicant was not named in the F.I.R.; but, during investigation, his complicity in the crime appeared and credible evidence was found against him. They submit that, only after collecting the credible evidences, the charge sheet was filed against the applicant and learned Judicial Magistrate, after examining the evidence on record, has rightly summoned the applicant to face the trial.

Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the material available on record.

There is a fundamental difference between a person executing a sale deed, claiming that the property conveyed is his property, and a person executing a sale deed by impersonating the owner or falsely claiming to be authorized or empowered by the owner, to execute the deed on owner’s behalf. When a person executes a document conveying a property describing it as his, there are two possibilities. The first is that he bona fide believes that the property actually belongs to him. The second is that he may be dishonestly or fraudulently claiming it to be his even though he knows that it is not his property. But to fall under first category of “false documents”, it is not sufficient that a document has been made or executed dishonestly or fraudulently. There is a further requirement that it should have been made with the intention of causing it to be believed that such document was made or executed by, or by the authority of a person, by whom or by whose authority he knows that it was not made or executed. When a document is executed by a person claiming a property which is not his, he is not claiming that he is someone else nor is he claiming that he is authorized by someone else. Therefore, execution of such document (purporting to convey some property of which he is not the owner) is not execution of a false document as defined under Section 464 of the Code. If what is executed is not a false document, there is no forgery. If there is no forgery, then neither Section 467 nor Section 471 of the Code are attracted. Any effort to settle civil disputes and claims, which do not involve any criminal offence, by applying pressure through criminal prosecution should be deprecated and discouraged.

Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of “State of Karnataka Vs. L. Muniswamy, reported in (1977) 2 SCC 699, has held as under:

“7. … In the exercise of this wholesome power, the High Court is entitled to quash a proceeding if it comes to the conclusion that allowing the proceeding to continue would be an abuse of the process of the Court or that the ends of justice require that the proceeding ought to be quashed. The saving of the High Court's inherent powers, both in civil and criminal matters, is designed to achieve a salutary public purpose which is that a court proceeding ought not to be permitted to degenerate into a weapon of harassment or persecution. In a criminal case, the veiled object behind a lame prosecution, the very nature of the material on which the structure of the prosecution rests and the like would justify the High Court in quashing the proceeding in the interest of justice.”

Similarly, in the case of “Anand Kumar Mohatta & another Vs. State (NCT of Delhi), Department of Home & another” reported in (2019) 11 SCC 706, has reiterated the observation made in the case of State of Karnataka Vs. L. Muniswamy (supra).

Thus, in view of the law laid down by Hon’ble Supreme Court in the aforesaid cases, this Court has no hesitation in quashing the impugned charge-sheet dated 09.12.2012 and also the entire proceedings of Criminal Case No.224 of 2013 pending against the applicant in the Court of IInd Additional Civil Judge (Junior Division)/Judicial Magistrate, Dehradun, under Section 420, 467, 468, 471 & 120-B of I.P.C.

Accordingly, this criminal miscellaneous application under Section 482 Cr.P.C. is allowed. Impugned charge sheet No.98/2012, dated 09.12.2012 as well as entire proceedings of Criminal Case No.224 of 2013 pending in the Court of IInd Additional Civil Judge (Junior Division)/ Judicial Magistrate, Dehradun, qua the applicant, are hereby quashed.