IMPORTANT POINT
The main legal point established is that the allegations in the FIR warranted investigation, and the court rejected the petitioners' contentions regarding lack of territorial jurisdiction, the civil/commercial nature of the dispute, and the alleged concealment of relevant proceedings.

JUDGMENT :

Rajan Roy, J.

1. Shri S. C. Mishra, learned Senior Counsel along with Shri Rajesh Chandra Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioners, Shri Jaideep Narian Mathur, learned Senior Counsel along with Shri Pranjal Krishna, Shri Manan Batra, Ms. Aishvarya Mathur and Shri Suhaib Ashraf, learned counsel for the opposite party no. 4-informant and Shri S.P. Singh, learned A.G.A. for the State.

2. By means of this writ petition the petitioners have challenged F.I.R. dated 26.01.2024 bearing Case Crime No. 0034 of 2024 under Sections 381, 409, 419, 420, 467, 468, 471, 506 IPC, Police Station-Sarojni Nagar, District-Lucknow and they have also sought a writ of mandamus that they may not be arrested in connection of the aforesaid F.I.R.

3. The informant has filed short counter affidavit which was taken on record when the hearing was concluded and the learned counsel for the petitioners did not propose to file any response as is mentioned in the order by which orders were reserved.

4. On a reading of the impugned F.I.R. we find that it has been lodged by the opposite party no. 4 against eight accused including the petitioners. The petitioner no. 2 is a Director of Radiant Buildcon Private Ltd. (hereinafter referred as to 'the Company') having its registered Office at Chandigarh. The opposite party no. 4-the informant is also one of the Directors. In fact, the informant is also a major share holder along with his family members in the said Company. The parent holding company is Avadh Rail Infra Ltd. in which both petitioner no. 1 and the informant are Directors along with other Directors. In fact, the said holding company has as many as six subsidiary companies, details of which are given in Para 10 of the writ petition. The petitioners are not share holders in any of the companies, though, the petitioner no. 2 is a Director in most of them.

5. The Company has a housing project on 1.75 acres of land i.e. Marina Heights at SAS Nagar, Punjab. Four Towers have been built comprising of 18 Flats each i.e. total 72 Flats. 21 Flats were sold during 2014-21, as claimed, with sale consideration 33 lacs to 35 lacs per Flats. Since 1996, the petitioner no. 2-Rohit Srivastava was working in the holding company Avadh Rail Infra Ltd. whose registered headquarter is at Lucknow. He was inducted as a Director in the Company. As the aforesaid housing project had not been registered with RERA, therefore, Flats were not to be sold and status quo was to be maintained. The Company was not in a position to sell the same. For these reasons the informant and his father who is also a Director in the Company, namely, Subhash Sarraf did not pay much attention to the activities of the aforesaid Company. Taking advantage of this the accused, especially, Petitioner no. 2 and accused no. 2 in the F.I.R. who is an Accountant in the Company, forged and fabricated a Board Resolution dated 01.10.2022 by which it was claimed that petitioner no. 2 had been authorized to sell the Flats on behalf of the Company and based on the aforesaid forged and fabricated Resolution 11 sale deeds were executed by petitioner no. 2 after 01.10.2022.

6. At this stage, it may be mentioned that during the course of argument Shri Jaideep Narain Mathur, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the informant submitted that initially they were aware about 11 sale deeds only, but, now, it appears that there are many more sale deeds which have been fraudulently executed by the petitioner no. 2 based on the aforesaid Resolution of the Board of Directors dated 01.10.2022.

7. It is also alleged in the F.I.R. that the informant and his father was not even present at SAS Nagar, Punjab when the Resolution is said to have been passed at the said place which will prove that the petitioner no. 2 has resorted to forgery, fabrication/manipulation of documents and based thereon has fraudulently executed sale deeds in respect of Flats owned by the Company to the purchasers in connivance with some of them and in this p