1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO. 4985 OF 2009 Jitendra Puri .... Applicant. V/s The State of Maharashtra ..... Respondent. Mr. Nitin Pradhan with Ms. S.D. Khot for the applicant. Mr. A.P. Mundargi, Senior Counsel i/b Jayant Bawdekar for the complainant. Mrs. S.D. Shinde, APP for the State. CORAM: V. M. KANADE, J. DATE : 5TH DECEMBER, 2009 P.C.:- 1 Heard the learned Counsel for the applicant and the learned APP for the State. 2 Applicant has been arrested in connection with the offence punishable under sections 464, 467, 468, 469, 471, 420 read with section 34 of the Indian Penal Code which is registered with Khalapur Police Station vide C.R. No.91 of 2009. 2 3. One Mrs. Chetana Ilpate @ Surabhi Mishra is carrying on business in the name and style of Surabhi Group. The said Group carries on business of sale and purchase of land since 2006. It is the case of prosecution that the said Mrs. Chetana Ilpate purchased land from six persons belonging to Patkar and Khan family and on 30/05/2008, MOU was executed between Mrs. Chetana Ilpate and six persons belonging to Patekar and Khan family. Thereafter, Sale Deed was executed on 16/07/2008. The said Sale Deed was signed by the said six owners of the said property and it was identified by two persons viz. Vaibhav Patil and Vivek Rabade. After the said Sale Deed was executed, the said Surabhi Group sold this land to one Kanak Developers who, in turn, sold the said property to M/s Begonia Agro & Developers Pvt. Ltd. In 2009, the complainants who claimed to be the original owners of the said property were surprised to find that names of some other persons were shown in 7 x 12 extract and, therefore, they made inquiries 3 and came to know about the sale deed which was executed. It is the case of complainants that the said persons who posed themselves as owners of the said property had impersonated the real owners and thereby the land was transferred in the name of Surabhi Group. After the complaint was lodged, police investigated the said offence and, according to the prosecution, one Anil Mhaskar and Sachin Kalekar had introduced these persons to Mrs. Ilpate and the present applicant had fabricated their election cards and ration cards and they had produced these ration cards and election cards before the Sub-Registrar s Office. According to prosecution, proprietress of Surabhi Group i.e Mrs. Ilpate and the present applicant were hand-in- gloves with the said accused Nos. 1 and 2 viz. Anil Mhaskar and Sachin Kalekar. Accordingly, the present applicant was arrested. Original accused Nos. 1  Anil Mhaskar, accused No.2  Sachin Kalekar & accused No. 4  Afzal Patni were also arrested. However accused No.6  Vijay Hande and accused No.7  Prakash Swami are absconding. 4 Charge-sheet has been filed, though it is submitted that further investigation is still going on since accused Nos. 6 and 7 are absconding. 4. Mr. Pradhan, the learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the applicant submitted that the applicant was merely an employee of the said Surabhi Group and that he had not identified six impostors in the Sale Deed which was executed on 16/7/2008. He submitted that he was merely present in the office of the Sub-Registrar when the said document had been executed. He submitted that accused Nos. 1 and 2 had introduced these six persons as owners of the property and, therefore, relying on the statements of accused Nos. 1 and 2, he, in turn, had introduced these persons when the release deed was executed in favour of Kanak Developers that they are true owners of the property. It is submitted that apart from this, there is no other role attributed to the present applicant. It is submitted that, according to prosecution, the ration cards and election cards 5 were fabricated by other accused Nos. 4 to 6 and not by the present applicant. No recovery was made at his instance. He submitted that charge-sheet is filed and the applicant is in jail since last four months. 5. Mr. Mundargi, the learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the complainant pointed out that there was no record to indicate that the present applicant was working as an employee. The salary certificate and appointment letter were not produced and the material on record indicates that the present applicant was, in fact, working in collusion with the said Mrs. Chetana Ilpate. He invited my attention to the statements of two persons who had signed as witnesses to the Sale Deed and pointed out that these two persons had stated that they were employees of the said Surabhi Group and they were asked by Chetana Ilpate to sign as witness. He submitted that, therefore, the involvement of the applicant is clearly established and, therefore, the applicant is not entitled to be 6 released on bail. 6. The learned APP appearing on behalf of the State, on the other hand, further pointed out the statements of some other witnesses who have stated that the present applicant had introduced the impostors as true owners at the time of execution of the release deed. 7. In my view, there is some substance in the submissions made by the learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the applicant. There is no material on record to indicate that the applicant was acting in collusion with the said Mrs Ilpate. No recovery of any money has been made at the instance of the present applicant. Police also have not found that the money which was received from M/s Kanak developers was kept in the account of the applicant. In fact, this Court is informed by the learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the applicant that the money which was received by Mrs. Chetana Ilpate from M/s. Kanak Developers have been 7 repaid. In the present case, it is an admitted position that the applicant merely was present at the time of execution of the first Sale Deed and he has not signed as witness in the said agreement. It is no doubt true that he has signed the second agreement viz. release deed. However, by that time, the said impostors were already introduced as true owners by accused Nos. 1 and 2. That being the only role attributed to the present applicant and since the charge-sheet now has been filed and all documents have been seized and since other accused viz accused Nos.1, 2 and 4 have been released on bail, continued detention of the applicant, in my view, is not necessary. 8. Applicant be released on bail in C.R. No.91 of 2009 registered with Khalapur Police Station, District Raigad in the sum of Rs 25,000/- with one or two sureties in the like amount. He shall handover his pass-port, if he has one, to the Investigating Officer. He shall report to the Khalapur Police Station initially once in a week 8 for a period of two months and, thereafter, twice in a month and, thereafter, once in a month after the supplementary charge-sheet is filed. 9. Application is disposed of. (V.M. KANADE, J.)