Allahabad High Court Goyal Agencies Through Its Partners, ... vs State Of Uttar Pradesh And Ors. on 31 January, 2008 JUDGMENT Vinod Prasad, J. 1. M/s Goyal Agencies and his two partners Arun Kumar Goyal and Vinesh Kumar Goyal have invoked our extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India with the prayer to quash complaint No. 84 of 2006 M/s Videocon Industries Ltd, M/s Goyal Agencies, under Sections 415, 417, 418 and 420 IPC, pending in the court of City Munsif/Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Sri Nagar (Jammu & Kashmir) vide annexure No. 4 to the writ petition by issuing writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari. The ancillary prayer is to issue any other writ, order or direction, which deems fit and proper on the facts and circumstances of the case. At the very outset at the time of admission the question which was mooted for our consideration by the contesting rival sides is as to whether this Court possesses territorial jurisdiction to quash the complaint, filed before City Munsif/Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Sri Nagar (Jammu & Kashmir). Because of the above noted legal question we deferred the hearing of the petition on its merits and heard the rival contesting side only on the question of maintainability of the writ petition before us. 2. Sri Murlidhar, learned senior counsel for the petitioners armed with a Judgment of the Apex Court reported in 2000 (II) U.P. Criminal Ruling page 582 Navinchandra N. Maiithia v. State of Maharashtra and Ors. vehemently harangued that the present writ petition is maintainable in this Court. He further contended that the Apex Court in the aforesaid Judgment has laid down the law that every High Court has got a territorial jurisdiction to entertain a writ petition, if some part of cause of action has arisen within its territorial limits. Learned senior counsel for the petitioners placed much emphasis on paragraph 6 of the aforesaid Judgment wherein the Apex Court has observed thus: Therefore, in determining the objection of lack of territorial jurisdiction the court must take all the facts pleaded in support of the cause of action into consideration albeit without embarking upon an inquiry as to the correctness or otherwise of the said facts. In other words the question whether a High Court has territorial jurisdiction to entertain a writ petition must be answered on the basis of the averments made in the petition, the truth or otherwise whereof being immaterial. To put it differently, the question of territorial jurisdiction must be decided on the facts pleaded in the petition. Therefore, the question whether in the instant case the Calcutta High Court had jurisdiction to entertain and decide the writ petition in question even on the facts alleged must depend upon whether the averments made in paragraphs 5, 7, 18, 22, 26 and 43 are sufficient in law to establish that a part of the cause of action had arisen within the jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court. 2.1 Learned senior counsel for the petitioners further harangued that it will be a travesty of justice if an unscrupulous litigant is allowed to launch a malicious prosecution in any part of the country, whether or not any part of the incident has occurred there or not and if such a practice is allowed specially in the corporate world, the business will crumbled down eroding the very economic edifice of the country. Learned Counsel for the petitioners contended that it will be too hazardous a proposition to allow an unorthodox litigant to circumvent the provision of Sections 177 to 189 Cr.P.C. incorporated under Chapter XIII thereof relating to the jurisdiction of criminal courts in inquiry and trial and lodge a complaint outside the limits of those places where any part of cause of action had occurred. In the submission of learned senior counsel for the petitioners no part of cause of action nor any part of the incident occurred in state of Jammu & Kashmir within the territorial limits of Judicial Magistrate First Class Sri Nagar, Jammu & Kashmir and therefore, the wielding of power of the said Magistrate under Section 190 Cr.P.C. by the complainant is a vindictive exercise tainted with malafides. Learned senior counsel for the petitioners further placed reliance on paragraph 27 of the Judgment of Navinchandra N. Majithia v. State of Maharashtra and Ors. (supra) and contended that the present writ petition is maintainable before us. Paragraph 27 of the aforesaid Judgment is reproduced below: Tested in the light of the principles laid down in the cases noted above the Judgment of the High Court under challenge is unsustainable. The High Court failed to consider all the relevant facts necessary to arrive at a proper decision on the question of maintainability of the writ petition, on the ground of lack of territorial jurisdiction. The Court based its decision on the sole considerat