HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE N. RAVI SHANKAR CRIMINAL PETITION NO.4614 OF 2008 ORDER: The point which arises for determination in this petition which is filed under Section 482 of Criminal Procedure Code (for short ‘Cr.P.C’) is whether there are grounds to quash the criminal case i.e. C.C.No.743 of 2007 on the file of the Court of VI Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Hyderabad. 2. The petitioner is the accused in the aforesaid C.C.No.743 of 2007. The said case arises out of a private complaint which was referred to C.I.D. Police for investigation and report. The said Police have registered a case in Crime No.7 of 2004 under Sections 65, 66 and 67 of the Information and Technology Act, 2000, Sections 406, 379 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code (for short ‘I.P.C’) and Sections 51, 63, 63(B) and 65 of the Copy Right Act and took up investigations. It is seen that subsequently the investigating officer i.e. Deputy Superintendent of Police, C.I.D, Hyderabad filed a charge sheet against the accused i.e the petitioner herein for the offences punishable under Sections 65 and 66 of the Information and Technology Act, 2000, Section 379 of the I.P.C and Section 63 of the Copy Right Act. This charge sheet has been registered as C.C.No.743 of 2007. 3. The substance of the allegations made in the charge sheet is that the petitioner, when he was in the employment of M/s Visual Quest India Private Limited(de facto complainant company), stealthily removed certain softwares developed by the de facto complainant company and kept them for his own use. The details of the said softwares are mentioned in the charge sheet. It is stated that subsequently he joined another company and secreted the above stolen software in the said company for his own purposes. Basing on these allegations, the aforesaid criminal case has been filed against the petitioner. 4. The petitioner says that all the allegations made against him are false and therefore the said criminal case should be quashed. In support of his contention, the petitioner’s counsel firstly relied upon the fact that the civil suit O.S.No.312 of 2004 that was filed by the de facto complainant company in the Court of II Additional Chief Judge, City Civil Court, Hyderabad, for a perpetual injunction was got dismissed as withdrawn on the ground that the de facto complainant company was not in a position to prove the allegations in the said suit and that itself is a sufficient ground to quash these criminal proceedings which pertain to the same cause of action or incident. There is no force in this contention. 5. It is now well settled that a Civil Court judgment is not binding on the Criminal Court and vice versa and that each Court can dispose of the matter on the basis of the evidence let in before it. This is the principle laid down by the apex Court in Iqbal Singh Marva Vs Meenakshi Marva[1] and also earlier in K.G.Pren Shankar Vs. Inspector of Police[2]. Thus the dismissal of the above suit O.S.312 of 2004 cannot be a ground to quash the present criminal case. 6. The learned counsel for the petitioner then relied upon two letters, one given by Col. C.V.S.S. Satish (Retd.) and another given by R. Raghuram Reddy, Director of the de facto complainant company and pointed out that these two letters would show the bonafides of the petitioner and whereas they further read that he has no criminal record and he worked well in the de facto complainant company and therefore these two letters are enough to quash the proceedings. There is no force in this contention also. It may be noted that this is a case where the Deputy Superintendent of Police of CID, who is the investigating officer has investigated the matter and filed charge sheet showing the offences against the petitioner which are already mentioned supra. In this connection, the petitioner also relied upon the relevant order dated 30.10.2002 which purports to have been sent by R. Raghuram Reddy, director of the de facto complainant company and pointed out that this relevant order would also show that nothing was due to the de facto complainant company and he says that this letter should also be taken into account. This letter is merely a relief order and it cannot show that the criminal case against the petitioner is baseless. It may at best constitute a defence for the petitioner. Hence, this contention is also rejected. 7. It may be noted that a perusal of the charge sheet which is registered as a criminal case would show that the allegations in the same do disclose offences relating to stealthy removal of software and it cannot be said that the said allegations do not disclose any offence at all. The charge sheet also shows that the investigation of the case has been done with the help of some experts in the computer field. In these circumstances, it is not open for this Court under Section 482 of Cr.P.C. to interfere in the matter at this stage. All the contentions raised by the petitioner relate to the merits of the matter and have to be decided by the criminal Court before which the case is pending. 8. Accordingly for the aforesaid reasons it follows that there are no merits in this petition. The point is therefore decided against the petitioner and this petition is dismissed. __________________________ JUSTICE N. RAVI SHANKAR Date:24.03.2011 SP THE HONOURABLE SRI JUSTICE N. RAVI SHANKAR CRIMINAL PETITION NO.4614 OF 2008 DATE:24.03.2011 SP [1] 2005 ALD 717 (SC) [2] 2002 (2) ALD (Crl) 887