The main legal point established in the judgment is that the High Court has the inherent power under Section 482 of the Code to quash criminal proceedings if the parties have amicably settled the dispute, and doing so would prevent the abuse of the court's process and secure the ends of justice.

JUDGMENT

Dinesh Kumar Sharma, J. (Oral)

CRL.M.A. 19329/2023 (exemption)

Exemption is allowed subject to all just exceptions.

Application stands disposed of.

CRL.M.C. 5088/2023

1. Present petition has been filed seeking quashing of case FIR No. 0077/2021 dated 12.03.2021 registered under Sections 420/468/471/34 IPC at PS Janak Puri and all other proceedings emanating therefrom. The said FIR was lodged on the complaint of respondent No.2 Heena Puri w/o Mr. Gaurav Puri alleging therein that the petitioners along with some other accused persons have hatched a criminal conspiracy and forged documents of her house and have forcibly occupied it.

2. Briefly stated that facts are that petitioner No. 1 is the brother of respondent No.2/complainant and petitioner No. 2 is the wife of petitioner No. 1 and sister-in-law of the respondent No.2/complainant. Petitioner No.1 and respondent No.2 have another sister namely Charu. Allegedly, the father of the petitioner No. 1 and respondent No.2 namely Shri Ramesh Malhotra purchased one property bearing House No. A5B/90B, Janak Puri, New Delhi on 29.09.1994 from their maternal uncle namely Shri Ravi Khanna for a sum of Rs.95,000/. Ravi Khanna executed a GPA dated 06.10.1994 and registered a Will dated 06.10.1994 in the name of Shri Ramesh Malhotra. One Ms. Poonam Khanna who is the wife of Ravi Khanna, signed as a witness in the Agreement to sell and the payment receipt.

3. After purchasing the said property, Shri Ramesh Malhotra along with his three children i.e. petitioner no.1, respondent No. 2 and Charu started living in the said property. His wife expired in 1994. Subsequently, Charu and the petitioner No.1 got married respectively and moved out of the said property and only respondent No.2/complainant remained in the said property until their father's death in 2006. Thereafter, the respondent too moved out of the said property after her marriage in December 2006. It has been alleged that only after the death of their father Shri Ramesh Malhotra, the respondent No.2 complainant was informed of the Will dated 05.04.2005 executed by their father. Allegedly, sometime in January 2007 the petitioner No.1 and 2 asked for the keys of the said property so that they could live in the said property.

4. The keys of the said property were handed over by the complainant, along with her belongings therein. Allegedly, thereafter, when the respondent No.2/complainant visited the said property on 31.10.2019 she noticed that construction works were going on and her belongings were not there. When she confronted one Anuradha Sharma, she was told that she had received the instructions for construction from petitioner No.1. Later, when the respondent No. 2 confronted the petitioner No.1 stating that she was the owner of the said property as per the Will dated 05.04.2005. She was told that the said property belongs to him as he is the sole son of their father.

5. Subsequently, after repeated requests, when the construction works did not stop, the respondent No.2 was constrained to lodge the complaint. Thereafter, the respondent No. 2 moved before the Dwarka Courts whereby when the accused persons filed their reply. The respondent No.2 was shocked to discover that the accused persons namely Ashok Malhotra, Geeta Malhotra, Anuradha Sharma and Chintu Sharma along with Poonam Sharma and Ravi Khanna hatched a criminal conspiracy by forging and faking documents and sold the said property to Anuradha Sharma, Anil Sharma, Chintu Sharma.

6. It has been alleged that despite being aware of the fact that after the demise of their father, the said property belonged to the complainant. The accused persons - Ravi Khanna and Poonam Khanna gave forged documents of the complainant's house in the name of petitioner No. 1/Ashok Malhotra, on the basis which, the petitioner No.1 got the freehold from DDA and got the sales deed of complainant's house (said property) in the name of Anuradha Sharma. Thus, respondent No.2 discovered that