Amar Saran - (1.) -Heard Gopal Chaturvedi alongwith Sri R. C. Upadhyaya and Sri Satish Trivedi appearing for the applicants, and Sri Pankaj Shukla, holding brief of Sri P. K. Gupta, for opposite party No. 2 and learned A.G.A.
(2.) THIS application has been filed for quashing an order dated 9.3.2004 summoning the applicants under Section 406, I.P.C. passed on a complaint under Sections 406, 419, 420, 504, 506 and 120B, I.P.C. dated 22.4.2003. The allegations in this case were that opposite party No. 2 was proprietor of M/s. Priya Distributors (in short, the firm). He became an agent for the applicants' firm M/s. Godrej Pilsbury Ltd., in Gorakhpur. For getting the said agency, he gave a draft of Rs. 11,000 on 12.10.1998. After that he was appointed as distributor for the food products of the firm. The applicant No. 1, was the area manager of the firm at Gorakhpur and applicant No. 2 was the Chairman of the firm. It was mentioned in the complaint that the complainant gave a draft No. 035011 of Rs. 70,000 drawn on the Oriental Bank at Gorakhpur but the products were not supplied against the said draft. However, it is mentioned that even thereafter the applicants kept on sending drafts and products were supplied but the supplies were irregular. It was further mentioned in the complaint that the complainant resigned from being the agent for the firm of 6.9.2000. He, however, sent a claim for Rs. 1,67,786.20 to the firm through a registered letter to the applicants' regional offices in Kanpur and Delhi, but the said claim was not met and in this view of the matter the applicants are said to have committed the offences mentioned in the complaint.
(3.) IN the summoning order, the learned Judicial Magistrate has observed that there are no allegations of any inducement to part with any money for the purpose of cheating the complainant, hence the offence under Sections 419 and 420, I.P.C. was not at all disclosed. Even so far as the allegation of hurling some abuses etc., at Delhi are concerned, the same were disbelieved and the applicants were not summoned under Sections 504 and 506, I.P.C. The applicants have, however, been summoned under Secton 406, I.P.C. Learned counsel for the applicants has contended that it is a pure civil dispute, if at all, over incomplete payment of price of products and there is no question of entrustment and therefore, the ingredients of Section 405, I.P.C. are not present in the complaint. The dispute in fact is essentially of civil nature and the criminal proceedings ought not to have been launched against the applicants.;