The Court ruled for the consolidation of multiple FIR trials involving similar allegations to uphold the right to a fair and speedy trial.

Order :

FARJAND ALI, J.

1. The instant Criminal Writ Petition has been preferred on behalf of the petitioner/accused of a case, seeking the indulgence of this Court for issuance of certain directions for conducting consolidation of trials in the matter filed against the petitioner facing charges of cheating, misappropriation of property, criminal conspiracy along with some other charges.

2. Briefly stating, the facts of the case as narrated in the petition are that the petitioner was chairperson of Navjeevan Credit Cooperative Society, which is a multi-state credit cooperative society and registered at the Central Registrar Cooperative, New Delhi. The society carried out its operations in various States including the State of Rajasthan and was operative without any default or glitch. Thousands of investors/depositors/members were registered from various parts of the State and even from the other States. According to the petitioner, due to the worldwide recession in 2019, the society failed to honor some of its payments to investors, and in the same context, some of the investors raised issues regarding non- payment of their dues and also alleged mismanagement and misappropriation of funds of the society. Upon which after a preliminary enquiry got conducted by the Additional Superintendent of Police, SOG, an FIR No.19/2019 came to be registered at Police Station, S.O.G, Jaipur on 20.07.2019.

3. Subsequent to the lodging of the FIR by SOG, a news had pervaded among the investors and people related to the petitioner or his company and thus incited with the above, there came a flood of lodging of FIR’s by different people at different places across the State of Rajasthan and beyond the state boundaries. Till date a large number of criminal cases have been registered against the petitioner by way of lodging FIR’s at different places however the cause of action, truth, substance, nature of the transaction, the act of the accused, and nature of allegation & charge in all the cases are the same or identical and the only difference was that cases were lodged by different people at different places. The society has business spread over various States of the Country and is also involved in transactions with various shareholders, depositors, and investors running into large amounts of money therefore, it has resulted in the registration of numerous FIR’s on the ground that the society was not able to honor the assurance of repayment to the depositors when it became due. It is also a fact that in the State of Rajasthan itself, several FIR’s were lodged against the petitioner as well the Society in various districts and continued to be registered by individual investors even though after registration of the FIR by SOG, the petitioner has been taken into custody and the operation of the society have been restrained and thus incapacitating him to make payments to the depositors whose payment became due thereafter.

4. As per the facts mentioned above in this present Writ Petition the petitioner is accused in several cases based on multiple FIR’s under alleged offences of cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery, criminal conspiracy, and other offences under Section 4 20 , 406, 409, 467, 468, 469, 471, 477-A, 201, 120-B of IPC etc. and under Section 4 /22 of the BUDS Act (Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Act), 2019. In criminal proceedings arising out of these FIRs, some cases are triable by Magistrate and some are triable by sessions court under the BUDS Act including offences under IPC across the State. In many districts, trial proceedings are initiated and are at different stages and FIR against the petitioner in the abovementioned provisions of the law are still getting registered for the same cause of action rendering it a continuing offence making the entire criminal proceedings inconvenient for the courts as well as the parties. Counsel for the petitioner in their submission before this Court also made a prayer for clubbing the tri