No prima facie case established against accused from allegations made; therefore, they were discharged from charges.

O R D E R

The petitioners are accused Nos.2 to 9 in C.C. No.756 of 2019 pending before the Judicial First Magistrate Court-I, Kothamangalam. Accused no.1 is the daughter-in-law of the defacto complainant. The petitioners are the retired employees of Kothamangalam Service Co-operative Bank (for short ‘the bank’). The petitioners along with accused no.1 faced trial for the offences punishable under Sections 406 , 409, 419, 420 and 120(B) of the IPC .

2. Admittedly, the defacto complainant had two fixed deposits in the bank. The prosecution case, in short, is that accused no.1, who is the daughter-in-law of the defacto complainant, stole the above two fixed deposit receipts from the house of the defacto complainant and colluding with the petitioners, withdrew the amount covered by the fixed deposits by impersonation and thereafter deposited only a portion of the amount withdrawn.

3. The petitioners entered appearance before the trial court and filed an application. Thereafter, they approached this Court invoking Section 482 of Cr.P.C. to quash the proceedings against them in C.C. No.756/2019. This Court as per Annexure A6 order disposed of the Crl.M.C. filed by the petitioners to quash the proceedings granting liberty to the petitioners to file an application for discharge before the trial court. Thereafter, the petitioners filed CMP No.5331/2023 in C.C. No.756/2019 under Section 239 of Cr.P.C. It was dismissed as per Annexure A9 order. The said order is under challenge in this revision petition.

4. I have heard Sri.Alexander Joseph, the learned counsel for the petitioners, Sri.E.C. Bineesh, the learned Senior Public Prosecutor and Sri.P.M.Rafeek, the learned counsel for the third respondent.

5. The learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that even if the entire case against the petitioners in the final report is believed in toto, no offences under Sections 406 , 409, 419, 420 and 120(B) of the IPC are made out against them. The learned counsel further submitted that since the charge against the petitioners is groundless, the trial court ought to have discharged them. On the other hand, the learned Prosecutor as well as the learned counsel for the third respondent submitted that there are prima facie materials on record to connect the petitioners with the crime and when a prima facie case is made out, the jurisdiction vested with the trial court under Section 239 of Cr.P.C. cannot be invoked and hence the trial court has rightly rejected the application for discharge as per the impugned order.

6. As stated already, the petitioners are the employees of the bank where the defacto complainant had fixed deposits. According to the prosecution, the daughter-in-law of the defacto complainant, who has been arrayed as accused no.1, stole the fixed deposit receipts from the defacto complainant and withdrew the amount covered by the fixed deposits without the knowledge or consent of the defacto complainant after impersonation. The crime was registered pursuant to a private complaint. Annexure A1 is the copy of the private complaint. In Annexure A1, the petitioners have not been named. On the other hand, the second respondent shown in Annexure A1 is a group of employees of the bank. A perusal of Annexure A1 would show that there is absolutely no specific allegation against the petitioners. The only allegation is that the petitioners colluded with accused no.1 to withdraw the fixed deposit amount from the bank. Absolutely no details or particulars have been given. Annexure A1 complaint was forwarded to the police and Annexure A2 FIR was registered. In Annexure A2 FIR also, the names of the petitioners were not mentioned. In Annexure A2, th