Case: Mahesh Parsram Matta Vs. State of Goa Through Public Prosecutor &amp; Others

1. Heard Mr. D. K. Singh, learned Advocate for the petitioner, Mr. S. R. Rivankar, learned Public Prosecutor for the respondent nos. 1 and 2 and Mr. Ryan Menezes, learned Advocate for the respondent no. 3.2. Rule. Heard forthwith with the consent of the learned Counsel. Learned Counsel for the respondents waiveinvestigation of the above crime is going on. The respondent no. 2 lodged this First Information Report on behalf of M/s. Sanda Well Being Private Ltd. (M/s. Sanda Company, for short). The said Company is presently known as M/s. Yours Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd.4. The above mentioned First Information Report is challenged by the petitioner on the ground that already the complainant has filed a criminal complaint against the petitioner in the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate at Mumbai. After filing of the complaint, the Metropolitan Magistrate has forwarded it to Nirmalnagar Police Station under the provisions of Section 156(3) of Cr.P.C. After receipt of the complaint, the Investigating Officer has registered the Crime bearing M.E.C.R. No. 7/2014 against the petitioner for the offences under Sections 403, 409, 420 and 465 of I.P.C. and the Investigation of that crime was already started and going on.5. The petitioner was in the employment of M/s. Sanda Company and was serving as a Sales Director during the period from 02/08/2008 to 25/03/2013. The services of the petitioner were terminated by the said Company. Thereafter, the said Company filed a suit for damages bearing Suit No 898/2013 before the High Court of Bombay. The petitioner has appeared in that suit and filed his Written Statement/ reply. Considering the written statement / reply of the petitioner, no interim relief has been granted in favour of M/s. Sanda Company.6. After registration of the initial cognizable offence against the petitioner at Nirmalnagar Police Station at Mumbai, he approached to the Sessions Court at Mumbai for anticipatory bail. He was granted interim anticipatory bail and the Bail Petition bearing No. 1284/2014 is pending.7. During the course of hearing of the Anticipatory Bail Petition at Mumbai, the Investigating Officer submitted his reply, from which, it is seen that the entire transaction during the service period of the petitioner for M/s. Sanda Company is under investigation. Therefore, according to the petitioner, there was no necessity to file another F.I.R. in respect of the same transaction/offence. The allegations regarding misappropriation of the money and forgery of certain documents are already under investigation by the Investigating Officer of Nirmalnagar Police Station at Mumbai. Therefore, filing of the subsequent First Information Report regarding the same allegations would nothing but abuse of the process.8. We have perused the documents on records.

Court's reasoning:
Therefore, this Writ Petition is liable to be rejected.The above observations made in RameshchandraNandlal Parikh (supra) are not applicable to the facts of the present case because admittedly, the accused was serving in M/s. Sanda Company, but the alleged offence of misappropriation or forgery is in respect of the amounts from two branches of M/s. Sanda Company. Therefore, it can not be said that the petitioner has committed a distinct offence. Shri Rivankar, learned Public Prosecutor also accepts that the transactions referred in the impugned F.I.R. are covered in the F.I.R. registered in Mumbai.From the above discussion, it follows that under the scheme of the provisions of Sections 154, 155, 156, 157, 162, 169, 170 and 173 Cr.P.C. only the earliest or the first information in regard to the commission of a cognizable offence satisfies the requirements of Section 154 Cr.P.C. Thus, there can be no second FIR and consequently, there can be no fresh investigation on receipt of every subsequent information in respect of the same cognizable offence or the same occurrence or incident giving rise to one or more cognizable offences. On receipt of information about a cognizable offence or an incident giving rise to a cognizable offence or offences and on entering the FIR in the station house diary, the officer in charge of a police station has to investigate not merely the cognizable offence reported in the FIR but also other connected offences found to have been committed in the course of the same transaction or the same occurrence and file one or more reports as provided in Section 173 Cr.P.C.The above observations made in AmitbhaiAnilchandra Shah (supra) are perfectly applicable to the facts of the present case because the alleged offences committed by the petitioner seem to be in the course of same transaction. Therefore, it is not permissible to register another offence for the same allegations. It is to be noted that the Police Officer of the Nirmalnagar Police Station, who is investigating the complaint, if comes across any further information regarding the same incident, he can make further investigation. The Investigating Officer can investigate the alleged misappropriation covering the period from 02/08/2008 to 25/03/2013. There is no bar on the Investigating Officer to investigate the case in its entirety.