JUDGMENT :

B.V. NAGARATHNA, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. The present appeals arise out of the common order dated 24.01.2023 passed by the Allahabad High Court dismissing the applications preferred by the Accused-Appellants under Section 482 bearing Nos. 33816/2022 and 33242/2022.

3. Briefly stated, the facts of the case are that Complainant-Respondent No. 2 registered a First Information Report (for short ‘FIR’) bearing No. 476/2017, under Sections 406, 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short “IPC”). The allegations in the FIR can be crystallized as under:

(i) The Accused-Appellant, Vishal Noble Singh, is the Principal of the Bishop Johnson School and College, a minority educational institution which is governed by the Diocese Education Board, Lucknow (DEB) which is run under the Church of North India (CNI). The Accused-Appellant, Vinod Bihari Lal, is the Secretary of DEB.

(ii) The Secretaries and other officers of CNI and DEB, in collusion with the Accused-Appellants, were fraudulently running the institution by fabricating matriculation and other documents.

(iii) The institution was functioning without affiliation from the Council for the Indian School Cert