The court emphasized the need for deep investigation by the authorities to resolve the factual disputes between the parties and refused to quash the FIR at the pre-investigation stage.

SANJAY KUMAR SINGH, J.

1. Heard Sri Gopal Swaroop Chaturvedi, Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Yes Tandan, and Sri Brijesh Sahai, assisted by Sri Azad Khan and Sri Bhavya Sahai, Advocates for respondent No.4 and Sri Ashutosh Kumar Sand, learned Additional Government Advocate Ist assisted by Mrs. Manju Thakur, learned AGA Ist for the State.

2. Learned Additional Government Advocate has accepted notice on behalf of respondent Nos. 1, 2 and 3. Respondent No.4 has filed counter affidavit dated 29.11.2018 after serving the copy of the same upon the learned counsel for petitioner. Learned counsel for the petitioner stated at the Bar that he does not propose to file any rejoinder affidavit and the present writ petition may be heard on merit at this stage itself. In view of the above, this matter is being decided finally at the admission stage itself.

Relief claimed in the writ petition:

3. The petitioner invoking extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has filed this writ petition with a prayer to issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned F.I.R. dated 14.11.2018 lodged by respondent No.4 against the petitioner registered as Case Crime No. 1835 of 2018, under Sections 408, 406 and 420 I.P.C. at Police Station Noida, Sector-20, District Gautam Budh Nagar.

Prosecution case:

4. The prosecution case in brief as mentioned in the impugned F.I.R. dated 14.11.2018 is that the informant Phill Alaph S/o Sri Robert Edward Alape R/o 379, Hill Street San Francisco California, USA, who is respondent no.4 in the writ petition is citizen of U.S.A. He is director and CEO of a company viz. Vsolay, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary Point Marketing, Inc, which is a software company and is in business of developing software and selling them to different clients. In 2006 company of the informant had come into contact with petitioner Himanshu Khatri who represented that he would hire individual software developers from India to build technology product for the informant. The process for engaging these individuals has been that their Cvs, education, credentials and experience were scrutinized by petitioner and he after verification sent the same to the informant along with the range of hourly compensation they expected to receive for their work. It is alleged that petitioner as agent of informant's company was getting a 1 USD per hour per person management fee agreed to cover costs and provide some margin for petitioner Mr. Himanshu Khatri. All the costs of computers, internet, cabs, etc. were borne by informant's company. Petitioner also took USD 20,000/- in the account of his sister Seema Jhurani for management costs. During the entire period of engagement petitioner fraudulently misrepresented the true identities of the individuals as well as their experience and their compensation. Petitioner sent forged C.V.s of the candidates after increasing their age and experience to the informant and in some cases after changing the names of the candidates also sent forged and photo-shopped ID cards to substantiate the forged C.Vs. Instead of experienced software engineers petitioner hired very unexperienced and junior person but charged from the informant for higher experienced persons. All this continued to happen from 2006 to 2015. In the end of year 2015, informant came to know that petitioner has been perpetrating a deep fraud, since beginning. He has hired very junior developers at very low cost, and hidden their true identities, levels of experience, and skills behind fraudulent identities, false names and fraudulent C.Vs and cheated informant. When informant came to know about general out line of aforesaid fraud of the petitioner, he requested the petitioner for validation of the identities and experience levels of the team, then petitioner provided a number of forged and fabricated documents, various government issued identity cards, Voter Cards, Driving Licenses and the photos