JUDGMENT

1. By way of this application, the applicant seeks to invoke the inherent powers of this Court praying for quashing and setting aside the Criminal Complaint registered against him before the Athwa Lines Police Station being I-C.R. No.104 of 2014 for the offence punishable under Sections 465, 468, 420 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code.

2. The applicant herein, namely, Jayrajsinh Madhubha Gadhvi is the original accused and the respondent No.2- Bhagwatsinh K. Vanar is the original complainant and for the sake of convenience and brevity, they shall hereinafter be referred to as the accused and the original complainant respectively. The Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 shall hereinafter be referred to as the ‘Code’ and the Indian Penal Code shall hereinafter be referred to as the ‘IPC’.

3. The facts giving rise to this application may be summarized as under;

3.1 The applicant was serving in the Police Department since 1993 and has been awarded more than 150 awards/good service ticket during his entire tenure.

3.2 Somewhere in the year 2009, an advertisement was published by the Police Department for recruitment to the post of Police Sub-Inspector (Unarmed), Class-III.

3.3 On 20.05.2009, the applicant had applied for the said post along with the necessary documents. To meet with the criteria of educational qualification as mentioned in the advertisement, the applicant had produced New S.S.C, i.e, 10th Standard certificate as also the certificate of Bachelor of Preparatory Program (hereinafter referred to as “the BPP”) in column No.12 of the said application.

3.4 On 21.06.2012, the State Government, issued a notification, inter alia, amending the Police Sub-Inspector (Unarmed) Class-III Recruitment Rules, 2008 by inserting Rule 2(2), Clause (a)(ii) which provides that even the constables who have worked for a period of 15 years would also be eligible to apply for the post of PSI.

3.5 Thereafter, the applicant appeared in the written examination, however, due to some unavoidable circumstances, he could not appear in the physical examination.

3.6 Later on, at a belated stage, the Department rejected the candidature of the petitioner on the ground that the certificate of BPP produced by the applicant is not equivalent to the 12th standard examination and, on the basis of the same, FIR also came to be registered against the applicant for the offences as mentioned therein. Hence, the present petition is filed by the applicant, seeking quashing of the FIR.

4. Learned advocate Mr. Bhadrish Raju appearing on behalf of the applicant-accused has vociferously submitted that the present complaint is nothing but an abuse of process of law and, therefore, is required to be quashed and set aside. He has submitted that the present complaint is registered with an ulterior and oblique motive by falsely implicating the present applicant-accused and, therefore, same deserves to be quashed and set aside. Learned advocate Mr. Raju has further submitted that if the contents of the complaint are accepted as true and genuine without admitting it, even though the basic ingredients to constitute the offence under the provisions as narrated in the complaint are missing and if the contents of the complaint are to be accepted as true, even though they do not constitute any offence much less the offence punishable under Sections 465, 468, 420 and 471 of the IPC. Learned advocate Mr. Raju has submitted that if the allegations levelled in the complaint are to be accepted as true, the same do not constitute the offence of forgery punishable under Section 468 of the IPC. Same way, offence of cheating punishable under Section 420 of the IPC has also not been prima facie made out and, therefore, on the strength of allegations levelled in the complaint, the same itself would not be able to establish the basic ingredients of the sections, for which, charges are alleged to have been levelled and, therefore, the impugned first information report is required to be quashed and set