O R D E R

Crl.O.P.No.25903 of 2017 has been filed by accused 1 and 2, Crl.O.No.25904 of 2017 has been filed by accused No.5 and Crl.O.P.No.26121 of 2017 has been filed by accused 3, 4 and 6 to quash the First Information Report in Crime No.26 of 2017 pending on the file of the respondent police.

2. The accused 1 and 2, who are husband and wife, are partners and accused 3 and 4 are their sons-in law and accused 5 and 6 are employees of the firm known as Sunrise Knitting Mills. The shorts facts of the case is that originally a partnership firm, by name “Sunrise Knitting Mills” was constituted in the year 2007, by the De facto complainant along with his three friends Shanmugam, Santhamani and Dhanalakshmi contributing 25% share each. Subsequently, Santhamani has resigned and in her place one Duraisamy, Son of Ramasamy Gounder was inducted as a partner. After such induction, A1 and A2 was holding 40% of the share in the firm. After the death of one of the partners, namely Shanmugam, his son-in-law, namely Sivaraman was also inducted as a partner. The first accused Duraisamy was given incharge to look into the affairs of the firm and from the inception, the firm was running profitably till 2016. The annual turn over was Rs.150 Crores. At the relevant point of time, by mortgaging or pledging or hypothecating the properties of the firm as well as individual partners, a sum of Rs.34 Crores was borrowed from Indian Overseas Bank. From 2016 onwards, the first accused Duraisamy started taking decision on his own without consulting with other partners and has not furnished proper accounts of the firm. Accordingly, the first accused with other accused conspired in the year 2015 and misappropriated the properties of the firm worth several crores and fraudulently started a new company by name Sunrise Knitting Mills Pvt. Ltd., on 16.12.2015 wherein accused 3 and 4 were directors. Thereafter, the business transaction of the firm was diverted to the company, besides company's property was also leased out to accused 3 and 4 for lesser amount thereby caused loss to the Company and all the assets of the Company worth about Rs.50 Crores was also misappropriated, thereby they committed offences punishable under Sections 120B, 420, 467, 468 and 471 of IPC.

3. It is the contention of the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners that the entire First Information Report is an abuse of process of law and the dispute in a partnership firm has been given a criminal colour. It is the further contention of learned counsel that this First Information Report itself filed on the basis of the direction of this Court in a petition filed under Section 482 Cr.P.C and prior to filing of this complaint, the dispute was referred to Arbitration wherein also similar allegations of fraudulent activities has been raised. Learned Arbitrator, a retired judge of this Court has given a finding to the effect that allegation of the de facto complainant and others has not been established and finally passed an award for dissolution of the firm and the manner in which the immovable properties of the firm has to be partitioned among partners. When the entire dispute relating to the affairs of the firm has already culminated into an award, suppressing the aforesaid arbitration award and to overcome the award, using the police machinery the present complaint has been filed before the police authorities and the same is nothing but an abuse of process of law and prays for quashing the complaint.

4. Per contra, learned counsel appearing for the respondent vehemently contended that the Arbitrator has not given any finding regarding the misappropriation of the assets of the firm and the immovable properties have been sold to the son-in-laws and there are huge misappropriation of the firm's assets, besides there is also allegation of the forged bills and therefore, this case requires investigation and opposed for quashing the FIR.

5. I perused the entire materials available on record.