The court reaffirmed that at the discharge stage, the focus is solely on whether prima facie evidence supports the charges against the accused, without delving into extensive inquiries.

JUDGMENT :

B.P. ROUTRAY, J.

By way of this appeal, appellants have assailed the order dated 16.12.2019 passed by the Presiding Officer, Designated Court, OPID Act, Cuttack in CT No. 14 of 2018 in rejecting the petitioner filed under Section 239 Cr.P.C. and refusing the prayer of the petitioners to discharge them from commission of offences under Sections 420 /406/467/ 468/471//120-B of IPC and Section 6 of the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (in Financial Establishment) Act, 2011 (hereinafter in short referred to as the “OPID Act”).

2. Present appellants, being husband and wife, are the Managing Director and Director of M/s. Z-Infra Construction Pvt. Ltd., Bhubaneswar (hereinafter referred as ‘the Company’) respectively. Both the appellants are the accused persons along with some others for the offences stated above in CT Case No. 14 of 2018 arising out of EOW PS, Bhubaneswar Case No. 17/2018, as per police report submitted upon completion of investigation.

3. The accusations are to the effect that the appellant No.1, namely, Prasan Kumar Patra is having 60% and his wife, appellant No.2, namely, Rashmita Patra has 40% share in the said Company. They allured people through different advertisements for purchasing plots and collected more than twelve crores rupees from around 662 investors and received deposits from them and by the process these appellants have received amount through different Bank transactions which have been mentioned in detail in the Police Report dated 24.04.2019.

4. It has been argued on behalf of the appellants that the Company is neither a financial establishment nor any deposit has been received within the meaning of Section 2(b) of the OPID Act, and thus the offence under the OPID Act is not attracted. However, the learned court below has wrongly rejected their contentions while refusing to discharge the appellants in the impugned order.

5. The same contention is also raised before this Court submitting that the appellants are not liable to be tried in the Designated Court for the alleged offences. It is also submitted that the Company rather fall within the definition of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act,2016.

6. In the backdrop of the submission made to advance the challenge of the appellants, it is necessary to give a perusal to the definitions of ‘deposit’ and ‘Financial Establishment’ as prescribed under Sections 2(b) and (d) of the OPID Act, respectively, which read as follows:

“2.(b). “deposit” includes and shall be deemed always to have included any receipt of money, or acceptance of any valuable commodity, to be returned after a specified period or otherwise, either in cash or in kind or in the form of a specified service, by any Financial Establishment, with or without any benefit in the form of interest, bonus, profit or in any other form, but does not include –

(i) amount raised by way of share capital or by any way debenture, bond, or any other instrument covered under the guidelines given, and regulations made, by the SEBI, established under the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992.

(ii) amounts contributed as capital by partners of a firm;

(iii) amounts received from a Scheduled Bank or a co-operative bank or any other banking company as defined in clause(c) of section 5 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949;

(iv) any amount received from-

(a) a State Financial Corporation, or

(b) any public financial institution specified in clause (72) of section 2 of the Companies Act, 2013, or

(c) any other institution that