Penal Code, 1860 – ss.406, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 34 – The complainant alleged that he had worked on the project of STP plant and drainage pipe line as a sub-contractor for BUL but only a partial payment against the total work carried out was received by him – In this manner, the complainant claimed to have been cheated – It was alleged that accused submitted false documents claiming to have performed the work whereas it was the complainant who had carried out the said work under the sub-contract – It was also alleged that signatures of engineers employed by complainant were forged – FIR was registered – The appellants herein filed a quashing petition u/s.482 of CrPC – The quashing petition and the criminal writ petition came to be rejected by the High Court – Correctness: Held: The complainant came out with an admitted case in his complaint that he had received a part payment to the tune of Rs. 3,68,15,612/- from the appellants, towards the work which was carried out in furtherance of the sub-contracts awarded initially through the sub-contractor, namely SWD Infra, and thereafter directly to the complainant’s company – Apparently thus, the admitted facts as available on record reveal that the complainant’s claim is for reimbursement of the remaining amount claimed by him towards the works executed in furtherance of a contract – The allegations, made in the complaint, present a dispute which is purely commercial and civil in nature – It seems that the complainant has contrived to somehow or the other, involve the police machinery to act as recovery agents on his behalf – The complaint, on the face of record, did not disclose any offence whatsoever and no FIR should have been registered based thereupon – Ex facie, the allegations of forging the signatures of the Engineers, employed by the complainant, are not substantiated from the investigation conducted in the case – This Court is of the view that allowing the proceedings of the impugned-FIR and the chargesheet filed as a culmination of the investigation, would be nothing short of a gross abuse of process of the Court – Thus, the impugned order dated 08.10.2018, passed by the High Court is hereby quashed and set aside. [Paras 18, 20, 21]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Ankit Gyan. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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