THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE N.RAVI SHANKAR CRIMINAL PETITION No.128 of 2011 ORDER: The petitioners herein are A-1 to A-6 in Crime No.308 of 2010 of Pendurthi Police Station, Visakhapatnam city. The first respondent who is a Swamiji of Visakhapatnam is the de facto complainant in the above case. The record filed by the petitioners shows that initially the first respondent gave a report in the Banjara Hills police station at Hyderabad alleging certain offences and that was registered there as Crime No.616 of 2010 and thereafter on point of jurisdiction it was transferred to Pendurthi Police Station, Visakhapatnam city. 2. The present petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short Cr.P.C), is filed by the petitioners herein for quashing that FIR in Crime No.308 of 2010 of Pendurthi Police Station. The offences alleged in the said case are those punishable under Sections 385, 506 and 505 read with Section 34 IPC. The first respondent is a Swamiji of Sarada Peetham located at Pendurthi in Visakhapatnam city and it is seen that it has also got a branch at Hyderabad. 3. The version of the Swamiji in the report dated 01.06.2010 given by him initially to the Banjara Hills police station is that on the said date he was camping at Hyderabad and on that occasion the first petitioner Rajasekhar, the second petitioner Venkata Ramana and the third petitioner Srikanth (A-1 to A-3 who belong to NTV Channel) approached him and demanded him to pay them a sum of Rs.1 Crore or in the alternative a sum of at least Rs.50 lakhs warning him that if he does not pay the said amount they would defame him in their television channel. The other particulars are not necessary. It would be sufficient to note that in the said report itself the Swamiji has stated that he recorded the conversation between him and the above three accused which supports the above allegations and saying so he also furnished a CD of that conversation to the concerned police. With the other allegations or averments in the report he requested the police to take action against the petitioners. It should also be mentioned here that subsequently the petitioners 4 to 6 were also added to the case by the police. It is not necessary to go into those details having regard to the plea taken by the petitioners. 4. The plea of the petitioners is that earlier petitioners 1 to 3 and the 5th petitioner filed an application i.e. Crl.P.No.11442 of 2010 in this court for anticipatory bail and this court by order dated 30.11.2010 granted them anticipatory bail. Their further plea which is the only plea for quashing the FIR is that in the order granting anticipatory bail, this court went through the translated copy of the conversation recorded on the CD which was made available to the court by the prosecution and found that the said conversation did not indicate anything to conclude that petitioners 1 to 3 threatened the second respondent by demanding money from him as alleged by him and that therefore the FIR should be quashed on that ground alone treating it as a false one. 5. It is true a perusal of the copy of the order dated 30.11.2010 passed in the anticipatory bail petition i.e. Crl.P.No.11442 of 2010 of A-1 to A-3 and A-5 passed by this court would no doubt show that this court made observations to the effect that it had gone through the translation copy of the conversation recorded on the CD in question and concluded that it does not contain any threats of extraction of money as alleged by the de facto complainant in the report given by him. Basing on this circumstance Sri Padmanabha Reddy, the learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioners, argued that the CD conversation in question must be held to falsify the FIR and there is nothing further for the police to investigate and consequently the FIR should be quashed. 6. On the other hand Sri Satyanarayan Prasad the learned Senior Counsel appearing for the de facto complainant pointed out that by reason of the above CD conversation itself the FIR cannot be held to be a false one and he further relied upon the material mentioned in the remand case dairy pertaining to A-4 and A-6 and argued that the said material itself shows that the police are probing into the matter further and therefore the police should be allowed to investigate the case. He also submitted that if ultimately the police find that the case is a false one they themselves can close the case and this court should not interfere. He also argued that the FIR allegations plus the other material mentioned in the remand case dairy pertaining to A-4 and A-6 are sufficient to reject the plea of the petitioners leaving the matter for investigation to the police. In the light of the above rival contentions the question whether there are grounds to interfere in the matter and quash the FIR should be considered. 7. To repeat, it may be noted that the FIR does contain the allegations relating to the offences for which it has been registered. It is also true that this court in the above anticipatory bail petition order did observe that the CD conversation made available to it does not support the allegations of threats alleged by the de facto complainant. It should however be noted that in the remand case dairy pertaining to A-4 and A-6 it is stated as to how A-4, A-5 and A-6 (petitioners 4 to 6 herein) went to the de facto complainant’s ashramam and questioned him and how they demanded money. It may also be noted that it then contains the material said to have been gathered by the police regarding the role of A-1 to -3 (petitioners 1 to 3 herein) approaching the Swamiji. It then also contains a mention about the role of ABV channel which is another TV channel and the mobile numbers of some of the accused and also how the NTV channel telecast an episode under the title “Swarupa 420”. The allegations made in the remand case dairy pertaining to A-4 and A-6 do indicate that police have gathered some information about the petitioners role in allegedly threatening the de facto complainant to defame him and demanding money. 8. It may be noted that the above material in the remand case dairy is mentioned not for showing that the version of the de facto complainant is true, but it is mentioned only to show that police have gathered some material which may show the alleged offences against the petitioners and that police are investigating the matter. The police may also take into account the CD conversation mentioned by this court in the above order granting anticipatory bail to A-1 to A-3 and A-5 i.e. petitioners 1 to 3 and 5 herein and ultimately come to a conclusion one way or the other regarding the alleged complicity of the petitioners for the offences alleged. 9. What should be noted is that the CD given by the de facto complainant may be a corroborative piece of evidence to support the FIR allegations made by him but no doubt it is found to be not supporting the said allegations by this court in the order passed in the above anticipatory bail petition. It cannot be said that the said CD clinches the matter and having regard to the material mentioned by the police in the remand case dairy pertaining to A-4 and A-6 the police may gather further material in the course of investigation and that may outweigh the above CD conversation making it ignorable or it may also support the observations of this court in the above anticipatory bail petition order. Thus what follows is nothing can be said about the truthfulness or otherwise of the case just because the CD conversation mentioned by the de facto complainant has not supported his FIR allegations as the said CD in the circumstances of this case can be said to be only a piece of evidence when other evidence can also be gathered to find out whether the allegations are true or not. 10. It is now well settled that a high court can interfere under Section 482 Cr.P.C to quash an FIR or an investigation only when the allegations even if believed as true in their entirety do not disclose any offence at all and not when the material gathered by the police show that they should carry on the probe to find out about the truthfulness or otherwise of the allegations. In view of this it would not be proper for this court to interfere in the matter just because a piece of evidence does not support the FIR allegations as investigation may disclose a different picture based on the further evidence or material collected in the course of the investigation. It is also possible that further investigation may as well confirm the plea of the petitioners also in which case the police themselves may close the matter. 11. In the above circumstances I am unable to agree with the contention of the petitioners that this FIR should be quashed only on the basis of the CD conversation relied upon by them and discussed in the anticipatory bail petition order of this court. 12. Accordingly for the aforesaid reasons this petition is dismissed. The police can go ahead with the investigation but this order shall not be understood to fetter their power of investigation in any manner. ______________________ N.RAVI SHANKAR, J 15th July 2011 CVRK