Misuse of criminal proceedings due to business rivalry and the importance of referring the matter to the police for investigation.

JUDGMENT :

1. The petitioner has filed the instant petition for quashing of the criminal complaint titled “Sanjay Kumar versus Jatinder Pal and others” pending before the court of learned Additional Munsiff (JMIC) Samba (hereinafter referred to as the trial court) including the order dated 24.07.2012 passed by the learned trial court, by virtue of which process has been issued against the petitioner and respondent Nos. 2 to 5 for commission of offences under sections 323, 341, 506, 382, 511, 34 RPC.

2. It is stated that the petitioner and his son Rahul Vashisht had some business dealings with regard to certain gold items with one Navneet Kumar alias Navneet Verma S/o Rakesh Kumar R/o Ludhiana, who happens to be the nephew of the respondent No. 1. The said Navneet Kumar i.e. the nephew of respondent No. 1 in order to pressurize the petitioner and his son, on 21.04.2012 filed a civil suit in the court of Civil Judge (Senior Division) Ludhiana and during the pendency of the said suit, the petitioner and his son filed an application under Order 7 Rule 11Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) seeking rejection of the plaint but the said application was dismissed by the said Court. The petitioner thereafter filed a revision petition before the Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh. The aforementioned Navneet Kumar in order to settle the scores with the petitioner and his son, filed a false and frivolous complaint in the court of learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Samba on 24.07.2012 under sections 323, 341, 506, 382, 364 read with sections 511 & 34 RPC against the petitioner and respondent Nos. 2 to 5 and the said complaint was transferred to the trial court. It has been further stated that the story has been concocted by the respondent No. 1 that on 19.07.2012 at about 9:30 PM, at Thandi Khui, Vijaypur, the petitioner and respondent Nos. 2 to 5 forcibly stopped the vehicle of the respondent No. 1 and pulled him out along with his nephew i.e. Navneet Kumar and started beating them and also threatened to kill them. During the said process, the petitioner and respondent No. 2 to 5 snatched the gold chain of the respondent No. 1. It was also stated that the local Police was approached but they did not investigate the matter. The learned trial court after recording the statement of the respondent No. 1 and his nephew as witness, vide order dated 24.07.2012 issued the process against the petitioner and respondent Nos. 2 to 5. The petitioner has impugned the criminal proceedings as also the order dated 24.07.2012 on the grounds that the complaint has been filed by the respondent No. 1 in connivance with Navneet Kumar just to blackmail and harass the petitioner and further that the learned trial court should have postponed the issuance of process and referred the matter to the police under section 202 Cr.P.C. in order to ascertain the truthfulness of the allegations leveled by the respondent No. 1.

3. The respondent No. 1 has neither appeared before this Court nor filed any response. The respondent No. 5, who figures as accused No. 5 in the complaint filed by the respondent No. 1, has filed the response in which he has stated that no such occurrence took place and he further stated that he is a doctor by profession and has been practicing for the last more than 30 years and is also the Managing Director of M/S Aggarwal Hospital at Firozpur. It is further stated that he does not even know the petitioner and for that matter even the respondent No. 1 and he is absolutely shocked to see his name in the list of the accused mentioned in the complaint. He has further stated that on the alleged day of occurrence, that happened to be his birthday, the petitioner was in the hospital premises only for the whole day and a small function was also planned by the staff of the Hospital that was attended by him. He has placed on record the affidavits of his staff, patients and their relatives to demonstrate that he was present in his Hospital on the alleged day