The main legal point established is that the continuation of proceedings against the petitioner amounted to an abuse of process of court due to lack of substance in the allegations and the supporting evidence.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: This Criminal Original Petition is filed under Section 482 of Cr.P.C., to call for the records in respect of the registered FIR in Crime No.06 of 2019, dated 04.03.2019, on the file of Respondent Police and quash the same as illegal and not maintainable.)

1. The Fourth Accused in the FIR is the petitioner herein.

2. The petition is filed seeking quashment of FIR No.06 of 2019 dated 04.03.2019, registered against the petitioner under Sections 167, 420, 409 r/w 109 of IPC and Sections 13(2) r/w 13(1)(a) r/w Section 12 of Prevention of Corruption Act and under similar provisions of law against 26 others.

3. Brief facts leading to the filing of the FIR, is as follows:

(i) The allegation in the FIR dated 04.03.2019, is that a 'school building' at Sri Bala Vidya Mandhir School, was completed construction as early as 25.06.2014 as evidenced from the 'structural soundness certificate' dated 28.05.2014 given by one Mr.E.Srinivasan, a panel Engineer, for the purpose of seeking recognition/license from Education Department for commencing school.

(ii) Suppressing the completed construction and the existence of school building and by showing the property as “Punjai-land”, A2 and A3 namely the Sub-Registrar, Arani and Joint-Registrar, Kanchipuram, have accepted and registered the following documents in respect of the subject property.

(a) Conveyance and made-over of lease vide document Nos.5773 and 5774 of 2014 dated 30.07.2014

(b) Document No.9183 of 2014 dated 10.12.2014

The above said documents were accepted for registration without siteinspection by the registering authority thereby caused stamp-duty (revenue) loss to the government.

(iii) The array of the accused are that A1 is the Village Panchayat Board President, A2 and A3 are the Sub Registrar, Arani and the Joint Registrar, Kancheepuram, respectively in the office of the Sub Registrar, Arani, wherein sale deeds have been registered and A5 to A27 are the purchasers and vendors of the property in this case.

4. Seeking quashment of the impugned FIR, qua, the petitioner/A4, the learned counsel for the petitioner/A4 would submit that building permission was accorded by the petitioner/A4 as Assistant Director of Town and Country Planning. He received application for the construction of the building on 13.06.2014 and accorded permission on 03.07.2014 and therefore, the allegation in Ex.P1-complaint that at the time of registration of document by A2 and A3 on 10.12.2014, there exists a building and further allegation that suppressing the existence of building A2 and A3, officials of the Sub Registrar office have treated the subject property as vacant land, thereby caused revenue loss to the exchequer and further stated that since the Registration of the document between A5 to A27, happened during December 2014, whether the land was vacant or not on 03.07.2014, cannot be presumed and hence, the very allegation is on presumption.

5. The learned counsel for the petitioner/A4 would further contend on the point of delay that, the alleged grant of permission by the Petitioner/A4 is in the year 2014, complaint was said to have been registered in the year 2017 and after preliminary enquiry in the year 2019, complaint was taken as an FIR and after three years till 2022, there is no progress.

6. Learned counsel for the Petitioner/A4 would further contend that the alleged certificate issued by the Licensed Engineer is a forged and fabricated, in which instead of mentioning the subject property as proposed building, he has mentioned it as building and relied upon the report given by Highways Department, wherein it is mentioned as proposed building at various columns. The very same document was relied upon by the prosecution. According to the Petitioner, the document issued by the private Engineer as license holder cannot be put against him to make a claim that on the date of issuance of building permission on 03.7.2014, there exists a building.

7. Learned counsel for the Petit