- (1.) THE petitioner invoking inherent jurisdiction of this Hon'ble Court prays for quashing of the FIR relating to Belghoria Police Station Case No. 31 dated february 9, 2007, under Section 354/506/323/34 of the Indian Penal Code.
(2.) MR. Dipak Kumar Sengupta, the learned Senior Advocate appearing in support of this application submitted before this Court that the impugned FIR is liable to be quashed on the following grounds; (a) Prior to the lodging of the impugned First Information Report several criminal cases were instituted against the opposite party no. 2 herein, defacto-complainant at the instance of the present petitioner who happened to be the Managing Director of M/s. Calcutta Ceramic Private Limited viz. (i) C-438/06 under Section 408 of the Indian Penal Code now pending before the Learned judicial Magistrate, First Court, Barrackpore for misappropriating huge amount of money and valuable documents of the company. (ii) Case no. C-8851/06 under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code now pending before the Learned metropolitan Magistrate, 13th Court, Calcutta for cheating the petitioner to the tune of Rs. 60,000/- which she took as an accommodation loan but did not return and misappropriated. Two other complaints were lodged with the belghoria Police Station against the opposite party no. 2, for criminally intimidating the petitioner. Beside the aforesaid criminal cases another complaint was lodged by the petitioner to the Marriage Officer, before whom the marriage of the opposite party no. 2 was held with one Raj Kumar Roy under Special Marriage Act, after he having come to learn that the said Raj Kumar Roy has his wife living at the time of marriage and concealing the said fact he married her. (b) The allegations made in the impugned FIR are entirely false and was manifestly attended with mala fide and has been maliciously made in the background of previous litigations pending by and between the parties. (c) The allegations are so absurd and inherently improbable that on the basis of the same no prudent man can conclude that there are sufficient grounds for proceeding against the accused. In the instant case, the complaint was lodged several months after the alleged occurrence and although according to the complainant the incident took place on July 16, 2006 when she went to the petitioner for her arrear salary remain outstanding since January 2006 but no legal steps was taken earlier by her for recovery of the same.
(3.) MR. Sengupta further submitted that in a very recent decision in the case of Inder Mohan Goswami Anr. Vs. State of Uttaranchal and Ors. , reported in AIR 2008 SC 251, the Apex Court reaffirmed and endorsed its earlier view taken by it in the case of State of Karnataka Vs. L. Muniswamy, reported in air 1977 SC 1489, Madhavrao Jiwajirao Scindia and Ors. Vs. Sambhajirao chandrojirao Angre and Ors. , reported in (1988) 1 SCC 692 and in the case of state of Haryana and Ors. Vs. Bhajan Lal and Ors. , reported in 1992 Supp (1)SCC 335. It is his further submission in the light of the law as laid down in the aforesaid cases no Court proceeding be permitted to degenerate into a weapon of harassment or persecution and in such circumstances in the interest it would be justified for the High Court to quash the criminal proceedings.;