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Uttarakhand High Court
Pawan Pal vs State Of Uttarakhand And Another on 7 August, 2025
HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL
Criminal Misc. Application No. 1681 of 2016
07th August, 2025
Pawan Pal -Applicant
Versus
State of Uttarakhand and Another -Respondents
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Presence:-
Mr. Navneet Kaushik, learned counsel for the applicant.
Mr. Deepak Bisht, learned Deputy Advocate General for the State.
None is present for respondent no. 2.
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Hon'ble Alok Mahra, J.
This criminal miscellaneous application has been filed by
the applicant to set-aside the impugned charge-sheet dated
18.07.015, summoning order dated 02.11.2015 and the entire
proceedings of Criminal Case No. 2035 of 2015, under
Sections 420, 467, 468 of IPC, pending in the court of learned
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Roorkee, District
Haridwar.
2. Brief facts of the case, in a nutshell, are that:-
Respondent no. 2, who was the Senior Bank Manager of
Syndicate Bank, Branch Civil Lines, Roorkee, lodged a
complaint against the applicant that a land was
purchased by Rishi Pal Singh, S/o from one Abhinav
Kumar by a registered sale deed on 02.07.2008. In the
2said sale deed, the applicant was one of the witnesses. It
has further been alleged in the said complaint that on the
basis of the said sale deed, Rishi Pal took a loan from the
bank in the year 2008 itself by mortgaging the sale deed,
in which applicant is a guarantor. It has been alleged in
the complaint that Rishi Pal Singh paid the instalments
of the loan till the year 2015, but, when he stopped to
pay the instalments, then, bank inquired into the matter
and it was revealed that some other person alleged
himself to be the actual buyer and in possession of the
said land, which was mortgaged and further that the sale
deed executed by Sri Rishi Pal Singh did not contain the
photograph of Abhinav Kumar, but, some other person.
On the complaint, FIR was lodged on 30.04.2015. After
investigation, charge-sheet was filed under Sections 420,
467, 468 of IPC, in which only the applicant has been
made the accused.
3. Learned counsel for the applicant has submitted that the
applicant was only the attesting witness to the sale deed and
was neither the beneficiary of any alleged plot, nor he was the
person, who has purchased the property. He has further
submitted that neither purchaser of the property Rishi Pal
Singh has been made an accused nor the Investigating Officer
has named the person, who was alleged to be the actual buyer
and chargesheet against the applicant has been filed only on
3
the basis of the statement given by Abhinav Kumar; that he
has not sold the property to Rishi Pal and he has sold it to
some other person, but, neither the person alleged to be
vendee of the said sale deed have been identified, nor the date
of the alleged sale deed have been mentioned.
4. A perusal of the sale deed would indicate that the
applicant is the only attesting witness to the sale deed.
Besides this, no other sale deed has been produced, as has
been alleged in the inquiry conducted by the Investigating
Officer. Abhinav Kumar has not filed any suit for cancellation
of the sale deed executed in favour of Rishi Pal and the sale
deed is still valid.
5. Learned counsel for the applicant has drawn the
attention of this Court to Section 3 of the Transfers of
Property, 1882, which defines the word ‘attested’. It states as
hereunder:-
“16……………………………………………………………………………………..
“attested”, in relation to an instrument, means and shall be
deemed always to have meant attested by two or more witnesses
each of whom has seen the executant sign or affix his mark to the
instrument, or has seen some other person sign the instrument in
the presence and by the direction of the executant, or has received
from the executants a personal acknowledgement of his signature
or mark, or of the signature of such other person, and each of
whom has signed the instrument in the presence of the executants;
but it shall not be necessary that more than one of such witnesses
shall have been present at the same time, and no particular form
of attestation shall be necessary;”
17. A careful reading of the aforesaid definition of the word
“attested” would show that the essential conditions of a valid
attestation under Section 3 of the Transfer of Property Act are: (i)
two or more witnesses have seen the executants sign the
4
instrument of have received from him a personal acknowledgement
of his signature; (ii) with a view to attest or to bear witness to this
fact each of them has signed the instrument in the presence of the
executants.”
6. Learned counsel for the applicant has thus submitted
that the attesting witness proves no more than that the
signature of the executing parties that have been executed in
his presence. Learned counsel has further submitted that
before sanctioning of loan, the bank follows a procedure to
verify the genuineness of the document, which is mortgaged
before the bank for securing the loan. It is further submitted
that a bare reading of the FIR would reveal that instalments of
the said loan were paid by Rishi Pal till the year 2015 and only
on default after that just to cover up their own lacunae, the
Bank Manager have filed the present FIR.
7. Per contra, learned State Counsel has submitted that
applicant has been made accused after the Investigating
Officer found that the applicant has impersonated some other
person in the alleged sale deed.
8. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the
record.
9. Hon’ble Supreme Court, in the case of State of Haryana
and Ors. vs. Bhajan Lal and Ors., after considering all its
earlier judgments, has laid down principles, which are
required to be taken into consideration by the High Court
5
while exercising its jurisdiction under Section 482 of the
Cr.P.C. for quashing the proceedings. It will be relevant to refer
to the following observations of Hon’ble Supreme Court in
Bhajan Lal (supra):-
“102. In the backdrop of the interpretation of the various relevant
provisions of the Code under Chapter XIV and of the principles of
law enunciated by this Court in a series of decisions relating to the
exercise of the extraordinary power under Article 226 or the
inherent powers under Section 482 of the Code which we have
extracted and reproduced above, we give the following categories of
cases by way of illustration wherein such power could be exercised
either to prevent abuse of the process of any court or otherwise to
1 1992 Supp (1) SCC 335 secure the ends of justice, though it
may not be possible to lay down any precise, clearly defined and
sufficiently channelised and inflexible guidelines or rigid formulae
and to give an exhaustive list of myriad kinds of cases wherein
such power should be exercised.
(1) Where the allegations made in the first information report or
the complaint, even if they are taken at their face value and
accepted in their entirety do not prima facie constitute any offence
or make out a case against the accused.
(2) Where the allegations in the first information report and other
materials, if any, accompanying the FIR do not disclose a
cognizable offence, justifying an investigation by police officers
under Section 156(1) of the Code except under an order of a
Magistrate within the purview of Section 155(2) of the Code.
(3) Where the uncontroverted allegations made in the FIR or
complaint and the evidence collected in support of the same do
not disclose the commission of any offence and make out a case
against the accused.
(4) Where, the allegations in the FIR do not constitute a cognizable
offence but constitute only a non cognizable offence, no
investigation is permitted by a police officer without an order of a
Magistrate as contemplated under Section 155(2) of the Code.
(5) Where the allegations made in the FIR or complaint are so
absurd and inherently improbable on the basis of which no
prudent person can ever reach a just conclusion that there is
sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused.
(6) Where there is an express legal bar engrafted in any of the
provisions of the Code or the concerned Act (under which a
criminal proceeding is instituted) to the institution and
continuance of the proceedings and/or where there is a specific
provision in the Code or the concerned Act, providing efficacious
redress for the grievance of the aggrieved party.
(7) Where a criminal proceeding is manifestly attended with mala
fide and/or where the proceeding is maliciously instituted with an
6ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance on the accused and with a
view to spite him due to private and personal grudge.”
10. In light of the observations made by the Hon’ble Apex
Court and after going through the record and perusing the
FIR, it is revealed that the applicant was only a witness to the
sale deed, which was registered in the office of Sub-Registrar.
It is also relevant to point out here that the said sale deed
executed by Abhinav Kumar in favour of Rishi Pal and which
was mortgaged by Rishi Pal by securing loan from the
complainant-bank, have not been cancelled till date and is a
valid document. Since, the applicant was only an attesting
witness of the sale deed, therefore, offences under Sections
420, 467, 468 of IPC, under which he has been chargesheeted,
are not made out.
11. Section 420 IPC reads as hereunder:-
“420. Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of
property.–
Whoever cheats and thereby dishonestly induces the person
deceived to deliver any property to any person, or to make, alter or
destroy the whole or any part of a valuable security, or anything
which is signed or sealed, and which is capable of being converted
into a valuable security, shall be punished with imprisonment of
either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and
shall also be liable to fine.”
12. In Lalit Chaturvedi v. State of Uttar Pradesh, this Court
quoted an earlier decision in Mohammed Ibrahim v. State of
Bihar, wherein, referring to Section 420 of the IPC, it was
observed that the offence under the said Section requires the
following ingredients to be satisfied:-
7
“The essential ingredients of the offence of “cheating” are as
follows:
(i) deception of a person either by making a false or misleading
representation or by dishonest concealment or by any other act or
omission;
(ii) fraudulent or dishonest inducement of that person to either
deliver any property or to consent to the retention thereof by any
person or to intentionally induce that person so deceived to do or
omit to do anything which he would not do or omit if he were not
so deceived; and
(iii) such act or omission causing or is likely to cause damage or
harm to that person in body, mind, reputation or property.
To constitute an offence under section 420, there should not only
be cheating, but as a consequence of such cheating, the accused
should have dishonestly induced the person deceived (i) to deliver
any property to any person, or
(ii) to make, alter or destroy wholly or in part a valuable security
(or anything signed or sealed and which is capable of being
converted into a valuable security).”
13. The main ingredient for substituting an offence under
Section 420 is intention, as discussed above. As such, no
ingredients of Section 420, 467 and 468 are made out against
the applicant, as he being only an attesting witness to the said
sale deed. Applicant was neither the beneficiary of any alleged
plot, nor he was the person, who has purchased the property.
14. In such view of the matter, this Court of the opinion that
even if, any case is made out against the applicant, it is
essentially civil in nature. In the case at hand, this Court sees
no criminal element and consequently, the case here is
nothing, but, an abuse of the process.
15. Accordingly, the present criminal miscellaneous
application filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal
8
Procedure, 1973 is allowed and the charge-sheet dated
18.07.015, summoning order dated 02.11.2015 and the entire
proceedings of Criminal Case No. 2035 of 2015, under
Sections 420, 467, 468 of IPC, pending in the court of learned
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Roorkee, District
Haridwar, is hereby quashed, qua the applicant.
(Alok Mahra, J.)
07.08.2025
Ujjwal
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