The judgment established the principle that the absence of specific allegations and the findings of an internal enquiry can be grounds to quash proceedings against a petitioner.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Criminal Original Petition filed under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, praying to call for the records relating to Crime No.7 of 2020 on the file of the Inspector of Police, Central Crime Branch Police Station, Salem and quash the same as against the petitioner.)

1. This Criminal Original Petition has been preferred to call for the records pertaining to Crime No.7 of 2020 on the file of the Inspector of Police, Central Crime Branch Police Station, Salem and quash the same.

2. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner; learned Government Advocate (Crl. Side) for the first respondent; learned counsel for the respondents 2 and 3 and perused the materials available on record.

3. The petitioner is the second accused; the second respondent has given a complaint before the learned Judicial Magistrate No.II, Salem in C.M.P.No.658 of 2020 under Section 156(3) Cr.P.C.; in pursuant to the order of the learned Judicial Magistrate No.II, Salem, the First Information Report has been registered and the complaint has been forwarded from the learned Judicial Magistrate No.II, Salem, to the file of the Inspector of Police, Central Crime Branch Police Station, Salem.

The gist of the complaint:-

4. The respondents 2 and 3 had been working in Burn Standard Company Limited, Salem; the said Company was transferred to SAIL Refractory Company Limited [hereinafter referred to as ''SRCL''], which is a subsidiary of Steel Authority of India Limited [SAIL], there was a system of maintaining the provident fund of the employees by a Provident Fund Trust and the same system was invoked even after the company was amalgamated with SAIL; the Provident Fund Trust comprises of members who are selected by nomination and election; out of six Trustees, three will be from Management and three will be from the employees; the Management Trustees will be nominated by the Management and the employees trustees will be elected by the members of the Trust; the financial activities of the Provident Fund Trust and processing of loan applications scrutiny etc., will be handled by a professional Chartered Accountant Firm on contract basis; such a decision for availing the service of an outside Firm was taken by one S.Rajagopal, who was the AGM (F&A) at the relevant point of time.

4.1. M/s.Venkat & Rangaa and M/s.Vimala & Pankaj are the Chartered Accountant Firms, which entered into the above contract with SRCL for the period from March 2017 to September 2017 and October 2017 to till date; the Finance Department of SRCL had handed over all the records and Registers pertaining to the maintenance of the Provident Fund Trust including the cheque books of the Provident Fund Trust, Loan Register, Loan Applications file and all other connected records to M/s.Venkat & Rangaa and M/s.Vimala & Pankaj to be maintained in their custody.

4.2. Whenever Provident Fund loan applications are received from the employees of SRCL, the Chartered Accountant Firms would process the applications and find out the eligibility of the employees and check all the details for disbursing the loan amount, the eligible loan amount for the applicant is determined by the Chartered Accountant Firms [M/s.Venkat & Rangaa and M/s.Vimala & Pankaj] after necessary calculations; after all verifications, the respondents 2 and 3 put their respective signatures believing that the process of issuing the cheques were properly carried out by the Chartered Accountant Firms and its employees; during October 2018, an audit report was handed over to the Provident Fund Trust wherein there was a finding that there had been some mismatch in the balance of amount, in an enquiry conducted by the Chief Operating Officer / Disciplinary Authority on 08.06.2019, the respondents 2 and 3 and other employees were asked to remit the misappropriated amount with accrued interest of Rs.32,38,488/- to the Provident Fund Trust Funds.

4.3. Under such compelling circumstances and without prejudice to the right to conduct the