IMPORTANT POINT
Quashing of criminal proceeding – It will not be just enough for Court to look into averments made in FIR/complaint alone for the purpose of ascertaining whether necessary ingredients to constitute alleged offence are disclosed or not.

JUDGMENT :

J.B. PARDIWALA, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. This appeal is at the instance of one of the accused persons of the First Information Report (FIR) No. 0007 of 2023 registered on 10.01.2023 at the Mirzapur Police Station, District Saharanpur, State of U.P. and is directed against the order passed by the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad dated 30.01.2023 in the Criminal Miscellaneous Writ Petition No. 982 of 2023 filed by the appellant herein by which the High Court rejected the Writ Petition and thereby declined to quash the FIR for the offences punishable under Sections 395, 386, 365, 342 and 506 resply of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

3. Respondent No. 3 herein is the original first informant. He lodged the FIR in question which reads as thus:

“The complainant is a contractor. In the year 2012, his firm by name V.S. Contractor received contracts for the construction work of a school building in Glocal University for Rs. 4.80 crore, a corporate office for Rs. 40 lakh and a girls’ hostel for Rs. 14 lakh. The work order was issued by the owner of the Glocal University viz. Mohd. Haji Iqbal alias Bala S/o Abdul Wahid R/o Mirzapur. All the agreements were signed by the then Manager Saifuddin working with the Glocal University. Copy of the agreements is attached with the complaint. The construction work was completed by the company by the end of the year 2015. I received some money. However, a sum of Rs. 1,20,00,000/- was left outstanding to be paid by the owner of the Glocal University, Mohd. Haji Iqbal alias Bala S/o Abdul Wahid. A lot of construction material like 9849-iron plates, 3215 channel, 998 joint pins, 7780 prop. Jack, 407 laser pipes, 250 cup lop, 70 clip, 560 iron sheets were kept in the University campus worth around Rs. 1,86,00,000/-. I had gone to meet Mohd. Haji Iqbal alias Bala and his brother Mehmood Ali Iqbal in the year 2016 with a request to allow me to take back the construction material back and also for recovery of the outstanding bill amount. They kept on ignoring me for many years in the guise of giving me new a contract and later, they even declined to meet me. In the year 2021, when the rent of my construction material went about Rs. 4 crore, too much pressure was put on me by the owner of the goods owner and therefor once again, I went to meet Mohd. Haji Iqbal alias Bala in the Global University in March, 2021. Mohd. Haji Iqbal alias Bala and his brother Mehmood Ali and the sons of Bala viz. Javed, Afzal and Alishan refused to give back the construction material and goods and threatened to kill me if I came back again. I again visited the Glocal University on the following Monday with my partner Yogesh Kumar S/o Dharam Singh R/o Shiv Puri, Yamuna Nagar requesting to give back the construction material and the goods. I found a person at the university gate itself (who seemed to be very close to Iqbal, as he spoke on the phone, may be an employee of Glocal University or looking after Iqbal’s land related work). I can recognise him when he comes face to face or by seeing his photo. He spoke to the owners and asked me to come with him. He took us to Haji Iqbal’s residence, where Haji Iqbal alias Bala and his brother Mahmood Ali and Iqbal’s sons Javed, Afzal and Alishan were present. When I demanded my money, they became very angry on us and forcefully snatched away car key, mobiles, a sum of Rs. 80,000/- from our pocket and I.D. Card. They asked us to bring the original copy of all the agreements and a sum of Rs. 10 lakh and threatened that they would kill both of us if we tell anyone about this. Later, after about 6 hours, around 5 p.m., one of our employee Karan Singh S/o Om Veer R/o Balu, District Saharanpur came at their residence with all the agreements and a sum of Rs. 10 lakh. Thereafter, they returned us the car key and mobiles only but did not return Rs. 80,000/-. Somehow, we escaped from there. They have great influence and power in the area, so we did not take any action against them fearing s