1 mpt IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO. 797 of 2010 Ajay Ashok Salvi & Anr ... Applicants versus The State of Maharashtra ... Respondent ... Mr.A.P. Mundargi, Sr. Advocate with Mr.Harshad Bhadbhade for the applicant. Mrs.A.A. Mane APP for the State. CORAM : D.G. KARNIK, J. DATED : 2nd March 2010 P.C. 1. Heard. 2. By this application, applicant seeks pre­arrest bail in connection with M.R.No. 1 of 2010 registered at Guhagar Police Station for an alleged offence punishable u/s.420, 465, 468, 471 of the IPC. 3. The facts in brief are that by a sale deed dated 7th August 2008 registered at Sr. No.581 of 2008 15 co­owners of the property bearing Gut No.1525 sold it to Ajay Ashok Salvi through his Power of Attorney Prashant Suresh Salvi. Ajay and Prashant are the applicants herein. 2 Prosecution case is that the vendor no.15 to the sale deed has been missing for about 40 years and could not have signed the sale deed. Prosecution also alleged that Power of Attorney executed by some of the vendors are not genuine. Therefore, the purchasers have committed the offence of forgery and the documents by preparing false sale deed. 3. A copy of the sale deed is filed on record in a compilation. The sale deed has been signed by some of the vendors personally and by the Power of Attorney holders of the others. The persons who have signed the sale deed as vendors certainly knew that vendor no.5 was missing for several years and yet they signed the sale deed purportingly in his presence and purportingly signed by him in favour of the present applicants. It thus prima facie appears that present applicants were the victims of the fraud committed by vendors or by some of them in collusion with each other rather than they having committed a fraud. It is not the case of the prosecution that applicants have not paid the consideration. After having received the full consideration, the vendors or some of them through heirs of vendor no.15 appear to have lodged the complaint. Police instead of arresting the vendors who prima facie are the parties to the fraud are seeking to arrest the present applicants. 4. In the circumstances, in my view, applicants can be granted pre­ arrest bail. Hence, I pass the following order:­ O R D E R In the event applicants are arrested in connection with M.R.No.1 of 2010 each of them shall be released on bail on their executing P.R 3 bond of Rs.15,000/­ with one surety of the like amount subject to the following conditions:­ (i) Applicant shall co­operate with the investigation and attend the concerned police station as and when summoned. (ii)They shall within 72 hours hereof intimate to the concerned police station their residential/mobile telephone numbers to enable the police to contact them, if necessary, for investigation. (iii) If after the arrest of the vendors, the police require the applicants for further custodial interrogation, they may move the court for cancellation of pre­arrest bail. This order shall remain in force for a period of eight weeks or till the charge­sheet is filed, whichever is later. (D.G. KARNIK,J.)