Delhi High Court: In a case wherein an application under Section 438 of Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (‘CrPC’) was filed seeking anticipatory bail in the FIR, registered under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 506 and 34 of the Penal Code, 1860, Navin Chawla, J.*, dismissed the bail application and held that merely because no action was taken against the erring police officers, who misbehaved with petitioner-applicant, anticipatory bail couldn’t be granted and also that forging an arbitration order was a serious offence.
Background
The FIR was registered on a complaint filed by complainant Yogesh Sharma, who had taken a loan from Kogta Financial (I) Ltd. (‘the Company’) to purchase Maruti Suzuki Eeco. The omplainant admitted that the loan was to be repaid in 24 instalments, however, he had paid only 4 instalments and alleged that proper receipt of payment made was not being issued to him. It was further stated that on 11-09-2023 that three unknown persons from the Company came along with a female and a male police officer and started quarrelling with the complainant and were also snatching the keys of the car from him. They presented a fabricated and forged paper purportng it to be an order passed by an Arbitrator, wherein they had authority to take possession of the car.
Applicant submitted that the allegations of misbehavior were made only against the two police officers and not against applicant and he had never visited the Police Station to seek assistance. It was further submitted that there was no record which showed that the arbitration order was produced by him. Applicant further submitted that in the absence of the company being made an accused in the complaint, he was entitled to a grant of anticipatory bail.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court opined that in case of default in loan, the recovery of vehicle could be made in accordance with law and forging an order of an alleged arbitrator was a serious offence.
The Court further opined that the allegation against applicant that he had produced before the police, a forged and fabricated arbitration order would require a detailed investigation and in addition to that, the presence of applicant at the complainant’s place would also require detailed investigation by the police.
The Court held that the absence of action against the erring police officers would not serve as a reason to grant an anticipatory bail to applicant at the stage of investigation. The Court further opined that the question of no loss caused due to the acts of applicant was a matter of trial and could nt be considered at the investigation stage. The Court thus dismissed the application on the ground of absence of merit.
[Vipul Jain v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2024 SCC OnLine Del 206, decided on: 11-01-2024]
*Judgment Authored by: Justice Navin Chawla
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Varun Singh, Akshay Dev, Ytharth Kumar, Abhijeet Kr. Panday, Rohan Chandra, Smriti Wadhwa and Pankaj Kumar Madi, Advocates
For the Respondents: Aman Usman, APP
