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2001 Supreme(Bom) 554
IN THE HIGH COURT OF BOMBAY
B.P. Singh, C.J. Smt. Ranjana Desai, J.
Anil B. Nadkarni others.... Petitioners.
Versus
Amitesh Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police others.... Respondents.
Criminal Writ Petition No. 244 of 2001, decided on 22-6-2001.
Advocates appeared :
V.R. Manohar with S.R. Chitnis, Sr.C. with Ms. Dahanukar Rahul Chitnis i/b, V. Deshpande Associates, for petitioners.
P. Janardhan, Addl.Adv.Gen. with S.R. Shinde A.P.P., for respondent Nos. 1, 2 4.
Shirish Gupte, Sr.C. with R. Sabarwal with Subodh Desai, for respondent No. 3.
Headnote:CONSTITUTION OF INDIA Article 226- Criminal Procedure Code, 1974, Section 482- Challenge to investigation- Where complaint filed by the complainant who was Chief Manager legal alleging that on 8-10-2000 when she resumed work at about 10.00 AM the petitioner called her in his cabin and told her to resign due to some irregularities and threatened her and also starting abusing her and thereafter she was made to sit in the cabin for three hours and when he came back, he read over executive directions that her increment for one year has been stopped and that she worked under petitioner No.3 and that when she started working under petitioner No.3 he used to make vulgar gestures and used to wink at her but she ignored and that on 10-1-2001 she was called by petitioner No.3 in his cabin where petitioner No.2 was also present and they told her that management has lost confidence in her and again threatened her to give resignation and therefore complaint lodged under Section 504, 342, 509/34 IPC and the petitioners were summoned against which writ petition has been filed for quashing, held at this stage it cannot be concluded that further investigation will be wastage of time, therefore the petition be rejected.
Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 Section 482 and Constitution of India, Article 226- Quashing of proceedings- It has been held by the Supreme Court (AIR 1960 SC 866) that ordinarily criminal proceedings must be tried under the provision of Cr.P.C. and the High Court should be reluctant to interfere the proceedings. However the proceedings can be quashed only where there is legal bar against institution of criminal proceedings or where alleged FIR of the complaint on the face of it does not constitute any offence or where the allegations do constitute the offence but there was no legal evidence in support of such allegations. In the absence of such requirement, the High Court will not be justified in interfering the criminal proceedings and the discretion for quashing such proceedings could not be exercised.
2. Petitioner No. 1 is the Director-Personnel of Siemens Ltd. ("the company" for short). Petitioner No. 2 is its Senior Manager-Personnel and petitioner No. 3 holds the post of General Manager-Legal in the company.
3. Respondent No. 1 is the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Zone-3, Mumbai. Respondent No. 2 is the Inspector of Police attached to Worli Police Station, Mumbai.
4. The facts which give rise to the present petition as set out in the petition are as under :
The complainant joined the company on 19th September, 1994 as Assistant Manager-Legal in the company's internal Officer's Grade of MG-1 Officer. She held different posts in the company. On 21st January, 2000, the complainant was promoted as MG-3 Officer. On and from 1st February, 2000, the designation of the complainant was changed to Chief Manager-Legal.
5. According to the petitioners in or about September, 2000 when the audit department of the company was conducting a periodic routine audit, they came across certain peculiar expense reports pertaining to the complainant. The audit department of the company vide confidential note dated 15th September, 2000 inter alia pointed out that the complainant was indulging in malpractice of self-sanctioning of the vouchers by compelling her subordinate to raise the vouchers pertaining to her expenses and pass on the said amounts to her on encashment of vouchers.
6. In response to the confidential note Mr. W. Kroll, the then Executive Director of the company instructed Mr. Prakash Khemani, General Manager to carry out further investigation and furnish a report to him. On 28th September, 2000 Mr. Prakash Khemani submitted a report to Mr. W. Kroll wherein he pointed out certain irregularities such as (a) self sanctioning of vouchers (b) claiming heavy personal expenses on telephones as official (c) undertaking outstation tours for personal reasons (d) claiming inflated conveyance expenses (e) claiming of arbitrary expenses (f) improper accounting of attendance in office (g) deliberate attempts to hide irregularities from her immediate supervisor.
7. It is the case of the petitioners that pursuant to the report, on 10th October, 2000, the complainant was called to Mr. Kroll's cabin, where apart from Mr. Kroll petitioner No. 1 and Mrs. Sujata Deshpande, Senior Personnel Officer were already present. As per the instructions of the management Mr. Prakash Khemani brought to the notice of the complainant the prima facie irregularities noticed by the audit department. Mr. Prakash Khemani left Mr. Kroll's cabin. Mr. Kroll instructed petitioner No. 1 to initiate provisional action of transfer of the complainant. The complainant agreed to accompany petitioner No. 1 to his cabin where the necessary procedure was to be carried out. Accordingly the complainant and Ms. Deshpande accompanied petitioner No. 1 to his cabin. As petitioner No. 1 had some other pressing matters to attend to, he left his cabin. The complainant requested petitioner No. 1 to allow her to continue to remain in his cabin since she was embarrassed to go back to her department. Since the complainant was emotionally disturbed, petitioner No. 1 asked Mr. Sujata Deshpande to remain with her and give her moral support. In the absence of petitioner No. 1, the complainant made two phone calls from his cabin, one to her Advocate and another to her relative. After about 2 hours petitioner No. 1 returned along with Mr. Kroll and it was decided to change the reporting of the complain
