Dineshbhai Chandubhai Patel vs The State Of Gujarat

3) In order to appreciate the issues involved in this bunch of appeals, it is necessary to state few relevant facts. The facts are taken from the SLP paper books.

4) The dispute arising between the parties to this bunch of appeals essentially relates to a piece of land bearing Survey No. 96/3/2, Block No. 121, admeasuring 5281 sq. mts., Plot No. 71, admeasuring 3475 sq. mts. of Town Planning Scheme No. 36 (Althan), situated at village Althan, Taluka & city -Surat (hereinafter referred to as "the disputed land”).

6) Six members of the Rathore Family (hereinafter referred to as the Complainants) filed one joint complaint to the Commissioner of Police, Surat on 25.04.2011 (Annexure-P-2) complaining therein that one person by name - Dineshbhai Chandubhai Patel in conspiracy with several other named persons jointly defrauded and deceived the 4 complainants by taking advantage of their illiteracy, poverty and unawareness got executed bogus Power of Attorney with bogus signatures in relation to the disputed land. It was alleged that these persons again in furtherance with the conspiracy got the disputed land transferred in favour of several persons and illegally got the construction maps sanctioned to enable them to do construction over the disputed land.

7) In short and in substance, the grievance of the complainants was that the above named persons conspired together and snatched away from the complainants their aforementioned valuable land by committing fraud, cheating, deception, breach of trust etc. on them.

8) The complainants enclosed all disputed documents along with their complaint to show prima facie case alleged to have been committed by 5 the above-named persons and prayed to the Commissioner of Police to investigate the entire case in relation to their land and bring the investigation to its logical end by first registering the FIR and then after holding a proper investigation, file the charge sheet in the competent Court against all those found involved in the case and prosecute them for the offences which they have allegedly committed and punish them under the Indian Penal Code and other related Acts.

9) This was followed by another complaint (Annexure P-6) filed with the Collector (SIT), Surat on 23.01.2012 against six named persons seeking therein the prosecution of those persons for having committed the alleged offences punishable under Sections 34, 114, 120-B , 420 ,465 ,468, 471 and 476 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereinafter referred to as “IPC”) read with Sections 3, 7 and 11 6 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The complaint also set out the allegations with details alike the previous one with some new facts.

35) On perusal of the three complaints and the FIR mentioned above, we are of the considered view that the complaint and FIR, do disclose a prima facie commission of various cognizable offences alleged by the complainants against the accused persons 19 and, therefore, the High Court instead of dismissing the application filed by the accused persons in part should have dismissed the application as a whole to uphold the entire FIR in question.

38) In the light of foregoing discussion, it is now necessary that the matter, which is subject matter of FIR in question, needs to be investigated in detail by the investigating authorities in accordance with procedure prescribed in the Code.

41) In view of foregoing discussion, the appeals filed by the complainants, i.e., criminal appeals @ S.L.P. (Crl.) Nos. 5476 & 5475 of 2017 are allowed. The impugned judgment is set aside. As a sequel to our order, the appeals filed by the accused persons, i.e., criminal appeals @ S.L.P.(Crl.) Nos. 5155, 5322, 5500 & 5867/2017 are dismissed.

42) As a consequence, the criminal applications filed by the accused persons under Section 482 of the Code out of which these appeals arise are dismissed.

43) Since the FIR is pending for quite some time, we direct the investigating authorities to complete the investigation of the case without any bias and prejudices strictly in accordance with law and proceed ahead expeditiously.

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