9911796707
TMI Blog2025 (2) TMI 1103X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... petitioner, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, do not prima facie constitute any offence under Sections 420, 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC. 2. It is admitted at the outset by the petitioner that at best an offence under Section 406 of the IPC might be registered on the basis of the said FIRs/complaints case. The complaints mostly alleged that the petitioner and his company misappropriated money advanced by the intending purchaser of flats/apartments promised to be constructed by the petitioner's company. As per writ petition as many as 61 FIRs were filed in different police stations. 3. At the time of hearing, it is submitted by the learned Senior Counsel on behalf of the petitioner that as many as 70 FIRs were filed against the petitioner. 4. It is necessary, at the outset, to state certain facts involved in the case which led the petitioner to file the instant writ petition. 5. The petitioner is Managing Director of Agrani Homes, a company incorporated under the Companies Act. The said company is engaged in real estate development business. It constructs apartment, commercial places and markets and sale them to public at large. 6. It is ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 138 of the N.I. Act was filed against the petitioner before the learned Judicial Magistrate 1st Class at Danapur. 8. Subsequent to the said complaint, series of other complaints were filed against the petitioner. Simultaneously, order were passed by RERA directing the petitioner's company to deposit huge amount of money to different intending purchasers including Ruban Hospital. It is stated by the petitioner that even prior to the intervention of the RERA, the petitioner was in the process of refunding the principal amount along with interest to the allottees of the various flats who had demanded refund from the petitioner. In the said process, the Agrani Homes had already made payments of an amount of Rs. 2 Crore and after intervention of RERA, the petitioner has paid approximately a sum of Rs. 38 Crores which, according to the petitioner shows the bona fide that the petitioner had no intention to misappropriate or commit cheating of the booking money of the intending purchasers with dishonest and fraudulent intention. However, the petitioner suffered series of criminal cases in the year 2021, 2022 and 2023. 9. The petitioner had filed a criminal writ petition bearing WP (Crl. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... of Punjab & Anr., reported in (2012) 10 SCC 303. 14. It is also contended by the learned Senior Counsel on behalf of the petitioner that there is absolutely no ingredient of offence under Sections 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC against the petitioner. Since the FIRs did not attribute to any criminal liability of the petitioner, all the FIRs are liable to be quashed relying on the decision in the case of State of Haryana v. Ch. Bhajan Lal & Ors. reported in AIR 1992 SC 604. 15. An alternative argument has been made by the learned Senior Counsel on behalf of the petitioner, stating, inter alia, that the allegations made in various FIRs are parts/series of one transaction and therefore it is necessary to quash all the FIR except the first one and club them together in single FIR. On the self-same allegation, there cannot be more than one FIR against the petitioner. 16. On this score, learned Senior Counsel refers to the decision in T.T. Antony v. State of Kerala & Ors., reported in (2001) 6 SCC 181, Paragraph Nos. 20 and 27 of the said decision is relevant and quoted below:- 20. From the above discussion it follows that under the scheme of the provisions of Sections 154, 155, 156, 1 ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... , may be a fit case for exercise of power under Section 482 CrPC or under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution." 17. The same principle is laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Arnab Ranjan Goswami v. Union of India & Ors., reported in (2020) 14 SCC 51. 18. On the same point, the learned Senior Counsel on behalf of the petitioner refers to the following decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court :- BabuBhai v. State of Gujrat & Ors., reported in 2010 (12) SCC 254 and Amish Devgan v. Union of India & Ors., reported in (2021) 3 SCC 306. 19. On 4th of November, 2023, Respondent No. 7, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Economic Offence Unit, Bihar has filed a counter affidavit denying all allegations made out by the petitioner in the instant writ petition. The contesting respondent refers to an order dated 25th of September, 2023 passed by this Court in the instant case where the Court has quoted the submission made by the learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner to the effect that he is not pressing for quashing of the FIRs at present. However, the learned counsel submits that he is pressing the prayer for clubbing all the cases before the agency. It is submitted by Responden ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ner were frozen. 22. The S.S.P., attached to the office / RERA, Bihar, Patna has filed another counter affidavit on 29th f March, 2024, stating, inter alia, that the intending home buyers being aggrieved person filed complaint under Section 31 of the RERA Act. More than 1500 complaints have been filed against the petitioner, orders were passed by the authority and when the petitioner failed to comply with the order of the authority under Section 40 (1) & (2) of the RERA Act read with Rule 25 of the RERA Rules, 2017, the matters were sent to the District Magistrate for recovery of the amount under the provision of Bihar & Orissa Public Demand Recovery Act. 23. It is contended on behalf of the Respondent No. 5 that the petitioner's company collected hundreds of crores of rupees from the allottees/complainants on promise of giving flats/plot since 2010 to 2019, but has miserably failed in every aspect. 24. The initiation of 28 suo-motu cases by the authorities, the respondent company had applied for 34 registration of their projects out of which only 11 projects have been approved by the authority and 24 projects have been withdrawn/rejected but, in spite of the said approval of th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to the intending purchasers at a price of Rs. 15,00,000/-. Advertisements made by the above-named companies of the petitioner attracted thousands of people and the above-named companies accepted consideration money from the intending purchasers and executed agreements for sale of residential units with each of the intending purchasers. It is alleged by the de facto complainants that in spite of acceptance of consideration money, the petitioner failed to deliver residential units to the complainants and misappropriated the consideration money which the intending purchasers / complainants paid to him and committed cheating. In some of such cases, there are allegations of forgery of the agreements executed by and between the intending purchasers and the petitioner for the purpose of cheating and using such forged documents as genuine in spite of petitioner's specific knowledge that such documents were forged. It is submitted by the petitioner by way of amendment of the writ petition that as many as 69 numbers of cases have been registered against the petitioner and the same is pending in different Courts. 5. The learned Sr. Counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submits tha ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... petitioner that his company has already returned consideration price, amounting to 38 crores to 651 allottees. In all, the petitioner returned 98 crores to the intending purchasers to whom the petitioner failed to deliver the possession of residential unit. He also completed 65 to 70 per cent of the construction work at the sites which were previously approved by RERA, Bihar. The petitioner has detailed out the manners of payment in page 10 to 13 of the rejoinder affidavit to the reply in counter affidavit filed by the Respondent No. 2 and Respondent No. 6. 10. It is also submitted by learned Sr. Counsel on behalf of the petitioner that the petitioner is in custody for 18 months. Offence under Section 406 of the Indian Penal Code prescribes punishment, which may extend to three years or with fine or with both. Thus, the petitioner is in custody for more than one-half of the maximum punishment, which may be imposed upon him for the offence punishable under Section 406 of the Indian Penal Code. 11. It is submitted by the learned Sr. Counsel on behalf of the petitioner that this Court in exercise of the extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Considering can pass an o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... , 467, 468 and 471 but utmost attract Section 406 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 in as much as the F.I.R.s registered against the Petitioner are technically instituted to unleash pressure against the Agrani Homes and to harass him." 14. It is contended by the learned Sr. Counsel that in the writ petition itself, the petitioner has not made any prayer in the form of interim relief for bail on the principle of Section 438 or 439 of the Cr.P.C. read with Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. 15. It is also submitted by the learned Sr. Counsel that the decision of Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Satinder Singh Bhasin v. Government of NCT at Delhi & Ors., was passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court under Article 142 of the Constitution of India read with Article 32 of the Constitution. It is recorded in the order passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Satinder Singh Bhasin v. Government of NCT at Delhi & Ors., Writ Petition (Criminal) No. 242 of 2019, in paragraph no. 1 that in the writ petition itself, the petitioner prayed for grant of bail in respect of F.I.R.s mentioned therein, registered at Police Station Kasna, Gautam Budh Nagar, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh and Police Stat ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... acteristics of independent transactions and we do not see any compelling reason to hold it otherwise. The plea as raised also cannot have our concurrence." 19. Thus, it is submitted by the learned Sr. Counsel on behalf of EOU that each individual agreement of sale of residential units and acceptance of consideration money constitutes separate and identical case. The incidents took place at different places under the different jurisdictions of different Courts. Therefore, the complaints cannot be clubbed together and this Court under its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution cannot grant an order of bail in connection with all the cases pending against the petitioner at different stage of investigation, enquiry or trial. 20. It is also submitted by the learned Sr. Counsel on behalf of EOU (Respondent No. 7) that amongst the cases pending against the petitioner, there are some cases registered on police report, some cases were registered on the basis of a complaint in the respective jurisdictional Courts of the learned Magistrates. In view of the provisions contained in Section 210 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the cases instituted on police report ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ion of law prescribing the mode in which such trust is to be discharged, or of any legal contract, express or implied, which he has made touching the discharge of such trust, or wilfully suffers any other person so to do, commits "criminal breach of trust". [Explanation 1].-A person, being an employer 3 [of an establishment whether exempted under section 17 of the Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (19 of 1952) or not] who deducts the employee's contribution from the wages payable to the employee for credit to a Provident Fund or Family Pension Fund established by any law for the time being in force, shall be deemed to have been entrusted with the amount of the contribution so deducted by him and if he makes default in the payment of such contribution to the said Fund in violation of the said law, shall be deemed to have dishonestly used the amount of the said contribution in violation of a direction of law as aforesaid.] [Explanation 2.-A person, being an employer, who deducts the employees' contribution from the wages payable to the employee for credit to the Employees' State Insurance Fund held and administered by the Employees' State Insurance ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
