ORDER

Vijay Kumar Shukla, J. - The present petition is filed under section 482 of Cr.P.C for quashment of criminal case ST No.31/2019 and pending proceedings before the Special Judicial Magistrate, CBI and EOW, Indore.

2. The facts of the case are that the petitioner and four others incorporated a public limited company namely "Pragya Diaries and Agro Ltd" which was limited by shares. The company was registered with the Registrar of Companies on 18.03.2010. The company was incorporated with the object to deal with the field of diary, agriculture and production and business of allied product.

3. According to the petitioner, he worked with the company for about 4-5 months; thereafter he stopped attending the meetings of the company. The petitioner aggrieved with the working style of the rest of the directors of the company decided to resign from the directorship of the company in the year 2011 and accordingly sent a resignation letter dated 19.01.11 to the Chairman cum Chief Managing Director (for short CMD) of the Company. The CMD of the company on 03.03.2011 duly accepted the resignation. The company in order to achieve its object invited applications from the general public to enter into joint venture with the company and it was assured that if any person enters into joint venture with the amount invested by the person shall be increased one or double within a stipulated time mentioned in the Joint Venture.

4. It is pleaded that despite the resignation by the petitioner in the year 2011, which was duly accepted by the CMD, the remaining directors for the reasons best known to them, did not remove the name of the petitioner from the records of the company and the name of the petitioner was reflected even on the official website of the company. It is alleged that after maturity of the scheme of Joint Venture, the persons, who invested their amount in the aforesaid scheme approached the Directors but they did not honor their promise and denied payment of principal and the amount accrued thereon under the scheme. Thus, the persons who invested under the aforesaid scheme did not receive the amount as promised by the company on maturity of the scheme and therefore, they lodged FIR against the Directors of the company including the petitioner and FIR was registered in EOW, Bhopal in crime no.42/2017 for commission of offence under section 420, 409, 120B of IPC and 4 read with 3 and 5 of the Price Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Prohibition), Adhiniyam, 1978.

5. Learned counsel for the applicant submits that the applicant has already resigned from the Directorship, which was duly accepted and therefore, the applicant cannot be prosecuted for default, if any, committed by other Director of the company. It is further argued that under the Articles of Association, there is no procedure prescribed for submission of resignation and its acceptance by competent authority and therefore, in absence of provision in the Company's Act and under the Article of Association, the resignation shall be effective from the date when it is tendered. In support of his submission, he has placed reliance on the judgment passed by Madras High Court in the case of T.Murari Vs. State in Criminal RC No.328-329/1971. In the aforesaid case, after considering the provisions of section 262, 283 and 318 of the Companies Act, it is held that in absence of any provisions in the Act of resignation by Director, shall be effective from the date when it is tendered. The same view was taken by the High Court of Delhi in the case of Dr.J.S Gambhir VS. Millennium Health Institute and Diagnostics Pvt Ltd reported in 2014 SCC Online Del 658.

6. He further submits that in similar allegations, the offences were registered at different police station for commission of offences under section 420, 406, 409 read with section 34 of IPC. The petitioner filed M.Cr.C No.27923/2017 for quashment of FIR and the said FIR has been quashed accepting the contention of the petitioner that he ha