Malay Marut Banerjee, J. - (1.) The revisionist/petitioners have prayed for quashing the proceedings of G.R. Case No. 748 of 2010 arising out of Park Street Police Station Case No. 50 of 2010. Before going into the contention raised in the revisional application within the legal scheme it would not be altogether out of place to refer to the factual matrix of the case as made out in the revisional application in a nutshell.
(2.) It is stated that petitioner No. 2 Sofia Ahmed is the daughter of petitioner No. 1 Wasir Ahmed. Both are British citizens. Petitioner No. 1 is the Chairman of A1 -Hamd Great Hall W.S.A. School at 18A, Dr. Sudhir Bose Road, Kolkata - 700 023 and has his business at Birmingham (U.K.). The petitioner No. 2 studied law from the Inns Court School of Law, London and both at present reside at 22/1, Dent Mission Road, P.S. Ekbalpore, Kolkata - 700 023. The petitioner No. 1 arranged marriage of petitioner No. 2 with one Dr. Tarifur Rahaman, the opposite party/complainant. It is stated that the petitioner No. 1 at the time of marriage of his daughter gifted diamond and gold jewellery valued at Rs. 12 lakhs and also cash of Rs. 2 lakhs. Such jewellery given by the petitioner No. 1 was taken by her mother -in -law under instruction of the complainant. The petitioner No. 1 arranged for the complainant to settle in England for study and work and has spent more than £30,000 British Pounds for accommodation and other expenses of his son -in -law, the complainant of the case and he also arranged for a Halifax Gold Card for his expenses and the complainant used the said card for all his expenses and the petitioner No. 1 had to bear all such expenses. Since the complainant/opposite party No. 2 was unable to open a separate bank account, the petitioner No. 2 opened a joint account with him i.e., her husband and thereafter the complainant opened his separate bank account. It is alleged that £4700 British Pounds was transferred from the joint account to the new single account of the complainant and the single new account was used by both the husband and the wife and the complainant also got British citizenship by being married to a British citizen. The petitioner No. 2 transferred some of her money from her husband's account to her own account to pay for bills which were accumulating in England and also for her own personal expenses she had incurred while living in India since January, 2010. It is alleged that after coming to India in or about January, 2010 the complainant started physical and mental torture upon his wife, the petitioner No. 2 whereupon she lodged a complaint with prayer for police investigation under Sec. 156(3) Cr.P.C. Such prayer was allowed and Ekbalpur Police Case No. 39 of 2010 was started and the complainant/opposite party No. 2 was arrested and was in police custody for six days and the petitioner No. 2 also filed a maintenance case under Sec. 125 Cr.P.C. against her husband. It is contended that to create pressure upon the revisionist/petitioners the opposite party No. 2/complainant lodged a complaint under Sec. 379/406/120B I.P.C. read with Sec. 66 of Information Technology Act on 03.03.2010 alleging that the petitioner No. 1 in collusion with his daughter have illegally siphoned off £ 10,390 British Pounds from the complainant's account with H.S.B.C. (United Kingdom) to the account of the petitioner No. 2 at Natwest Bank (United Kingdom). It is contended that both the parties are British citizens and the money -in -question was transferred from a bank in U.K. to another bank in U.K. outside India and none of the parties resides within the jurisdiction of Park Street Police Station and no offence can be said to have been committed within the jurisdiction of Park Street Police Station. Further contention is that without the previous sanction of the Central Government in accordance with Sec. 188 Cr.P.C. the proceedings is not at all maintainable and is liable to be quashed.
(3.) Mr. Dipak Kumar Sengupta, Ld. Senior Counsel appearing for the revisionist/petitioners argued that the sheer weakness of the complainant's case is manifest from the allegation levelled by him against the revisionist petitioners because it is beyond anybody's comprehension how allegation of theft could be made against a person alleging commission of criminal breach of trust against the same person arising out of the same and identical transaction. It was argued that once the opposite party/complainant got his footing on the soil of a foreign country at the benevolence of the revisionist/petitioners he took no time to misappropriate the gold and diamond jewellery of his wife and started perpetrating all sorts of torture upon the revisionist petitioner No. 2 with a view to making her life a hell so that she parts way with him. It was contended that the torture accelerated to such an extent that the revisionist petitioner No. 2 although belonging to the elite class of society was constrained to initiate proceedings under Sec. 498A/406/307/325/120B I.P.C. against the opposite party No. 2/complainant and members of his family. It was argued that in his bid to get rid of that criminal prosecution and to create pressure upon the revisionist/petitioners the opposite party No. 2/complainant lodged the instant case i.e., Park Street Police Station Case No. 50 dated 04.03.2010. It was argued that it is not the complainant's case that he had ever entrusted any property with either of the revisionist/petitioners and so the question of criminal misappropriation cannot and does not arise at all. It was further argued that even if it is taken for granted for the sake of argument that some amount was transferred from the single account of the complainant to the account of the revisionist petitioner No. 2 that took place in the United Kingdom and so the alleged theft cannot be tried into by Court in India far to speak of any sort of investigation pertaining thereto by Indian Police.;