- (1.) Petitioner has filed this petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure,1973 seeking quashing of the criminal complaint No. 125 dated 30.4.2002 titled as M/s Zeppelin Sales and another vs. M/s Mukerian Paper Ltd and others (Annexure P1) and summoning order dated 23.10.2003 (Annexure P2) along with all consequential proceedings arising thereto .
(2.) Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that at the relevant time, when the cheques were issued, petitioner was no longer the Director of the Company. Petitioner has resigned from the Company with effect from 1.11.1999. Learned counsel has further submitted that the complaint in question was quashed by this Court qua the similarly situated co-accused-Ashwani Kumar vide order dated 1.4.2008 (Annexure P4).
(3.) None has appeared on behalf of the respondents. This Court, while allowing the petition filed by the coaccused-Ashwani Kumar, (Annexure P4) has held as under:- "Annexure P3 is the information given in form No.32 duly certified and issued by the Registrar of Companies indicating that the petitioner had resigned from the directorship of the company on 8.3.1999. To a similar effect is the reutrn of the compnay which are attached along with Annexure P4 in which it is clearly reflected that the petitioner ceased to be a director of the company in the year 1999. The cheques in question were issued in the year 2001 and once the petitioner had ceased to do anything with the affairs of the company, there is no question of his being responsible for the affairs of the company so as to warrant any complicity in the issuance of cheque which were said to have been dishonoured. Having regard to the aforesaid when there is sufficient material on record to show the innocence of the petitioners, I have it appropriate to accept the present petition and quash the impugned order qua the petitioner. Ordered accordingly. As a result, the complaint also stands quashed qua the petitioner. Before parting with this order, I deem it appropriate to observe that the petitioner, in his letter dated 22.3.2002, had clearly refuted the allegations against him and had stated categorically that he was not the director of the company and had nothing to do with the company since 1999 when he chose to resign but despite this, the complainants persisted with their allegations and stated that as per the records of the Registrar of the Companies, Jalandhar, he continued to be the director of the company and was, thus, liable. These averments stand belied by the record that the petitioner has produced. The complainants have also not turned up either to controvert the averments made in the petition or to contest the petition despite the fact that they were served. In view of the above and the fact that the persons resorting to criminal prosecution cannot level allegations on their whims and fencies without their being any cogent material to accuse a person of having committed an offence or having committed any violation of the provisions of any Act, the conduct of the complainants, therefore, cannot be excused.";