IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Crl.Misc.No.M-24407 of 2009 (O&M) Date of decision : 24.9.2009 Gurcharan Singh and others ....Petitioners Versus State of Punjab and another ...Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE MAHESH GROVER .... Present: Ms.Rupinder K.Thind, Advocate for the petitioners. .... MAHESH GROVER, J. Crl.Misc.Nos.44163, 47671 & 47672 of 2009 Crl.Misc. are allowed as prayed for. Crl.Misc.No.M-24407 of 2009 The main petition is preponed to today. This petition under Section 438 Cr.P.C. has been filed praying for release of the petitioners in terms thereof in a case registered vide FIR No.503 dated 16.7.2009 under Sections 417/420/468/471 IPC, at Police Station Kotwali, Bathinda. The petitioners who are allegedly Directors of the company have tried to capitalize on the subsidy which was available for running a cold storage and being granted by the State Government. The allegations further are that they had ceased to be the Directors in the year 2004 when the company had undergone a change. The application for release of the subsidy was made in the Crl.Misc.No.M-24407 of 2009 (O&M) -2- year 2007. Since the petitioners were no longer the Directors of the company, they in an unreasonable manner tried to derive undue advantage and had also tried to defraud the existing Directors of the company. It is contended by the learned counsel for the petitioners that they had never resigned as Directors of the company and are continuing as such. The attention of the Court was drawn towards Annexures P-12 to P-14 which are the resignations submitted to contend that the same were accepted by one Jagdev Kaur whose name incidentally does not find any mention in Annexure P-20 vide which the new Directors are said to have been inducted and Annexure P-20 is of subsequent date implying thereby that Jagdev Kaur was nobody to accept the resignations of the petitioners. The attention of the Court was also drawn towards Annexure P-15 whereby rest of the Directors of the erstwhile management resigned on 20.4.2005. Besides this, Annexure P-10 shows the list of shareholders and the names of the petitioners continue to be on the same indicating that the petitioners are still very much involved in the affairs of the company. It was next contended that agreement Annexure P-1 reflects the change over of the company reflecting a total sale consideration of Rs.90,00,000/- and Rs.30,00,000/- were received as earnest money and that this agreement was not carried to its logical end. With reference to the above said facts learned counsel for the petitioners contended that the allegations against them are false and they have been unnecessarily implicated in this case. I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioner. Crl.Misc.No.M-24407 of 2009 (O&M) -3- The material on record in the shape of Annexure P-2 which has been placed by the learned counsel for the petitioners also reveals a declaration made in Form No.32 of the Companies Act, 1956 which information has been given to the Registrar of Company showing that the petitioners had resigned from the directorship of the company on 21.6.2004. The facts which have been stated before this Court therefore reflect that either the chronology of these facts is incorrect or the information that has been submitted to the Registrar of the Company is incorrect. Learned counsel for the petitioners when confronted with this situation, stated that the signatures of the petitioners do not appear on Form No.32 and these signatures were forged. However, what is intriguing is as to why no effort was made by the petitioners to lodge a complaint against the persons who had allegedly fabricated their signatures on Form No.32 and as to why they remained silent for such a long time. First time they raised objection against the said forgery in the year 2008 and the fraud which the petitioners have alleged to have been committed was done in the year 2007. The court also does not find it plausible that the persons who were acting as Directors and were in-charge of the company were not in the know of the fact that they no longer exist as Directors. It is not the case of the petitioners that they have been discharging the functions of the company ever since. In this view of the matter, not only do the facts reveal prima facie commission of some offences by the petitioners but also reveal a deeper corporate fraud which needs to be probed deeply. Thus, there is no reason to grant the concession of pre-arrest bail. Crl.Misc.No.M-24407 of 2009 (O&M) -4- Dismissed. 24.9.2009 (MAHESH GROVER) JUDGE dss