Allegations in a business dispute do not constitute a criminal offence; such cases should be treated as civil matters.

JUDGMENT :

Sanjay Kumar Dwivedi, J.

The notice was issued upon the O.P.No.2 and the notice has been served upon the son of the O.P.No.2 who is working in the same shop of the O.P.No.2. As such, notice upon the O.P.No.2 has been deemed to be validly served and the same was served in the year 2017 itself and till date, nobody has appeared on behalf of the O.P.No.2. In view of that, this petition is being heard in absence of the O.P.No.2 on merit.

2. Heard Mr. L.C.N.Shahdeo, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners and Mr. Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent State.

3. The prayer in this petition has been made for quashing of the entire criminal proceeding including the order taking cognizance dated 27.09.2016 arising out of Complaint Case No.605 of 2016, pending in the court of learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jamshedpur.

4. The complaint case has been filed alleging therein that the respondent no.2 applied for distributorship of the company’s milk products and submitted his details to the Sales Manager of the company Rajnish Kumar (accused no.3) at the local office of the company, situated at Plot No.79/C-1 and C-2, Kamre, near Sahu Cold Storage, Ranchi-Lohardaga Road, Ranchi which was approved by him on 12.12.2014, whereby the respondent no.2/complainant became the distributor of the petitioner company. The respondent no.2/complainant is a cheat himself and after having sold all the products taken by him from the company, he in order to earn wrongful gain and to extort money from the petitioners by blackmailing them through the instant complaint lodged it on the following allegations:

That sometimes in the month of December, 2014 the petitioner no.2 who is the Director of the company and accused no.3 who is the sales manager of the company arrayed as petitioner no.1 came to Jamshedpur and after having introduced themselves told the complainant that they are looking for retailers to sell Kasheer Dairy Creamer and impressed upon the complainant to store, market and sell the said product.

That the complainant stated that he was not interested in the particular product since it was new and untested in the market whereupon the petitioner no.2 and accused no.3 assured the complainant that they would provide adequate salesman to promote the marketing of the product and on such assurance the complainant placed an order for 109 boxes of the product costing Rs.2,73,947.52/-.

That the aforesaid material was supplied to the complainant in the month of January, 2015 the cost of which was paid by the complainant. The shelf life of the product was 12 months only.

That time and again the complainant requested and pleaded the petitioners to depute their salesman for promoting the product but the petitioners willfully and deliberately neglected and failed to provide the sales man and support staff as promised. In short, it is alleged that there was deficiency of service on behalf of the petitioners as they promised.

That the petitioners induced the complainant by playing deceit and sold the product to the complainant having no intention to provide any salesman and support staff and thereby the petitioners have cheated the complainant and acted in breach of the implied legal contract and caused wrongful losses to the complainant and wrongful gains for themselves.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the petitioner no.1 is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 and is having its registered office at 1711 S.P. Mukherjee Marg, New Delhi and has pan-India presence and the petitioner no.2 is Vice-Chairman of the said Company and there are several other Directors of various Departments, like, Finance and Marketing, etc. of the company. The said Company is engaged in manufacturing packaged food products, that is, dairy products, packaged drinking water, soft drinks, etc. The petitioner-company is having a good reputation in Indian market. The company has established