Criminal Misc. Application No. 56-MA of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA, CHANDIGARH CRM.A. No.56-MA of 2010 Date of Decision:April 21, 2010 Punjab State through Junior Engineer ...........Appellant Versus Smt.Sudha Wahi ..........Respondent Coram: Hon'ble Mrs. Justice Sabina Present: Mr.Ashish Grover, Advocate for the applicant-appellant. ** Sabina, J. Complainant-Punjab State filed a complaint under Section II (i) read with Section 3(i) & 8 (i) of Punjab Regulation of Colonies Act, 1975 (`the Act' for short) against accused- Smt. Sudha Wahi and Gurvinder Singh respondents. Vide judgment dated 8.9.2009 passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Amritsar respondent-Smt. Sudha Wahi was acquitted of the charge framed against her while Gurvinder Singh was declared a proclaimed offender. Hence, the complainant-appellant has filed this application under Section 378(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure for grant of leave to file an appeal against the order mentioned above. Criminal Misc. Application No. 56-MA of 2010 2 Brief facts of the case, as noticed by the trial Court, in paras 1 and 2 of its judgment, are reproduced here in below:- “ 1.The instant complaint filed by Harjeet Singh- Junior Engineer, office of Estate Officer, Urban Estate, Amritsar, whereupon accused Sudha Wahi and Gurvinder Singh were ordered to be summoned to face trial on the allegations that the accused no.1 is the owner of the land bearing Khasra No. 107/2 min, 107/27 min, situated in village Gumtala, Tehsil and Distt. Amritsar and accused no.2 is general power of attorney of accused no.1. Accused have divided the aforesaid land into five or more plots for residential, commercial, industrial purpose and have thus set up a colony as defined in section 2(c) of Punjab Regulation of Colonies Act, 1975. The accused have sold plots in the aforesaid colony for constructing buildings. The detail of various transfer effected by them to different persons after the commencement of Punjab Regulation of Colonies Act, 1975 is given below:- Sr. No . Name of Purchaser Area of plot Sq yds Sale price Date of Regd. 1 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Ashwani Kumar s/o Rajinder Pal Rajinder Singh Dhillon s/o Balwant Singh Manjit Kaur w/o Baldev Singh Sukhraj Kaur w/o Jaswant Singh Sudesh Kumar Pruthi s/o Brij Lal Sukhdev Raj Narula s/o Daulat Ram Tarlochan Kaur w/o Paramjit Singh Avtar Singh s/o Kartar Singh 123 123 250 250 150 160 353 250 24500.00 24500.00 50000.00 50000.00 30000.00 32000.00 70000.00 50000.00 15.3.94 15.3.94 15.3.94 15.3.94 9.3.94 9.3.94 9.3.94 21.3.94 Criminal Misc. Application No. 56-MA of 2010 3 2. The accused have not obtained any licence as required u/s 4(2) of Punjab Regulation of Colonies Act, 1975 for converting their aforesaid land into a colony for transfer of plots in that colony for residential, commercial, industrial purpose and have thus contravened the provision of Section 3(i), 8(i) of the Act, which are punishable u/s. II(i) of Colonies Act, 1975. The sanction for prosecution of accused obtained and attached with the complaint and further prayed that the accused be convicted and punished according to law.” After hearing the learned counsel for the appellant, I am of the opinion that the application for leave to appeal against judgment dated 8.9.2009 is liable to be dismissed. The respondent was owner of 13 kanals 7 marlas of land and vide agreement dated 24.12.1993, she sold the said land in equal shares to Balraj Kohli, Gurvinder Singh, Kuldip Singh and Darshan Kaur. Possession was handed over to the vendees after receipt of sale consideration. In these circumstances, the learned trial Court rightly came to the conclusion that the respondent had not violated any provisions of the Act. Their Lordships of the Supreme Court in Allarakha K.Mansuri vs. State of Gujarat 2002(1)RCR(Criminal) 748, held that where, in a case, two views are possible, the one which favours the accused, has to be adopted by the Court. A Division Bench of this Court in State of Punjab v. Hansa Singh 2001(1) RCR (Criminal) 775, while dealing with an appeal against acquittal, has opined as under:- Criminal Misc. Application No. 56-MA of 2010 4 “We are of the opinion that the matter would have to be examined in the light of the observations of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Ashok Kumar vs. State of Rajasthan, 1991(1)scc 166, which are that interference in an appeal against acquittal would be called for only if the judgment under appeal were perverse or based on a mis-reading of the evidence and merely because the appellate Court was inclined to take a different view, could not be a reason calling for interference.” Keeping all these facts and circumstances in mind, the learned trial Court had, thus, rightly acquitted the accused of the charge framed against her. No ground is made out to grant leave to file an appeal. Accordingly, this application is dismissed. (Sabina) Judge April 21 , 2010 arya