S MOHAN Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner, who is admittedly one of the Directors of a Benefit Fund viz. Vizhima Nagar Benefit Fund Private Limited from 26.7.1999 has come forward to file all the above criminal original petitions praying to call for the records in C.C.Nos.5 to 11 of 2002 on the file of the Court of Additional District Judge-cum-Chief Judicial Magistrate, Villupuram and quash the same on averments such as that he resigned from the Board of Directors of the said Benefit Fund from 7.1.1999 on Form-32 being issued relieving him from the said responsibility as per the Companies Act, 1956; that the defacto-complainants connected to all the above criminal original petitions are the depositors who have respectively lodged the complaints alleging that they deposited the amounts and in spite of their deposits having matured, their amounts were not repaid and the said complaints have been registered for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 120-B,420,409 etc. further pleading that his name was not figuring in the complaint; that there was no mens rea for indulging in the criminal act and hence the charges levelled against him are liable to be quashed.

(2.) The petitioner also would cite an order passed by this Court in Crl.O.P.No.10193 of 2000 wherein the complaint has been quashed on ground that no mens rea was attributed against the accused persons therein and would pray to allow all the above criminal original petitions and quash the criminal proceedings pending against him.

(3.) During arguments, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner besides laying emphasis on the facts pleaded in the above criminal original petition , as extracted supra, would lay emphasis on the order mentioned therein, passed in Crl.O.P.No.10193 of 2000 dated 7.7.2000 wherein the learned Judge traced the facts showing that the petitioner, a lady, therein was not paid the entire amount due in a chit fund in which she became a member of the chit and later became the prize winner and still there was a due; that the defacto-complainant executed a promissory note and on the complaint of the defacto-complainant therein, the case was registered and investigated into, in which, on a criminal original petition having been filed by the accused therein, accepting the argument of the accused therein to the effect that it was settled law that in a criminal case, there must be presence of guilty mind i.e. mens rea, which is an essential element of a crime and since it was lacking in the case and since the defacto-complainant therein had also filed a suit for recovery of the said sum, the learned Judge had allowed the petition filed by the accused quashing the said proceeding.