The High Court emphasized that CBI investigations are warranted only in exceptional cases; existing agency actions sufficiently addressed the fraud allegations.

JUDGMENT :

NEENA BANSAL KRISHNA, J.

1. Aforesaid three Writ Petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India read with Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as “Cr.P.C.”)have been filed on behalf of the Petitioners for directing CBI to investigate collusion of ROC staff, bank employees and politicians in this gigantic scam; to direct the ED to investigate money laundering, benami transactions, disproportionate assets and other economic offences; to directSFIO to investigate corporate, capital market & forensic fraud, etc.; and appoint a Forensic Auditorfor recovery of petitioners’ hard earned money.

2. The facts narrated in the Petitions are that on 01.04.2020, Petitioners came to know that Westland Trade Pvt. Ltd. is a fake, bogus and ghost Company, created by an organized international racket of money launderers. It is not a simple case of forgery, criminal breach of trust, dishonestly inducing delivery of property, cheating by personation, falsification of accounts, concealment of property, dishonest misappropriation, corporate fraud, benami transaction and black money hoarding, but the biggest franchisee scam of India.

3. This Company was registered on 26.04.2019, at Village Wazirpur, Patudi Road, Gurugram, Haryana, having Head Office at E-29, 1^st Floor, Sector 63, Noida, U.P. The Directors were Mr. Manish Dahiya, Mr. Kunal Keshav, Mr. Ankur, Mr. Sanjeev Sharma, Mr. Anshul Sharma and Mr. Ashish Joshi. In collusion with ROC and Bank Staff, they registered many fake, bogus & ghostCompanies and brands viz. Hyper Supermarket, Hyper Mart, Big Mart, Super Mart, Louies Salon, Midnight Cafe, Franchisee World, BM Mart, H Mart and S Mart, etc. They claimed to help individuals to start business in Retail sector, but dishonestly misappropriated and converted Petitioners hard-earned money into black money and benami properties, in violation of the contract.

4. It is submitted that the Company from the Petitioners along with many other persons, collected Franchisee Fees of Rs.4,00,000/- plus 18% GST and Set up cost of Rs.5,000/- per square feet and on assured payout of: (i) 2% minimum guaranteed income on total setup cost paid by franchisee owner (ii) Store rent 60 INR/SQFT (iii) 10% of sales as commission.The Company also assured to take care employee salaries, electricity bill, required licenses to run the store etc. In May 2019, Company started appointing franchisees and they were able to attract more than 500 investors. Petitioners are not sure of how many otherpersons have been duped by the Company, as they don’t have contacts of all franchisees.

5. Things started going wrong from 01.04.2020 as the payment of the month of March 2020 which was due in April, was paid in installments, after rigorous follow up by each of the Petitioners with Company. March month's payment was cleared in April and May. Some of the Petitioners/victim got e-mail in May saying that Company is enforcing Force Majure clauseof the Agreement and shall not be making payments for the months of April-May,2020. This was strang