Uttarakhand High Court
Unknown vs State Of Uttarakhand & Another on 19 June, 2025
2025:UHC:5162
IN THE HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND
AT NAINITAL
HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE ALOK MAHRA
Criminal Misc. Application No.817 of 2016
19th June, 2025
Yograj Saini. ...Applicant
Versus
State Of Uttarakhand & another. ...Respondents
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Presence: –
Mrs. Neetu Singh, Advocate for the applicant.
Mr. Deepak Bisht, Deputy Advocate General for the State of Uttarakhand.
Mr. Nalin Saun, Advocate for respondent no.2.
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By means of this criminal misc. application under
Section 482 Cr.P.C., applicant has sought quashing of charge
sheet No.98/12, dated 09.12.2012 as well as entire
proceedings of Criminal Case No. 224 of 2013, under Section
420, 467, 468, 471 & 120-B of I.P.C., pending in the Court of
IInd Additional Civil Judge (Junior Division)/Judicial
Magistrate, Dehradun.
2. Facts of the case, in a nutshell, are that an F.I.R.
was lodged by respondent no.2 against three persons,
alleging therein that they have sold the land of the
complainant by executing a forged sale deed by
impersonating him and, in lieu thereof, grabbed a sum of
₹20,00,000/- from the purchasers towards sale
consideration. In the F.I.R., it is alleged that complainant has
not sold the said land to anyone and he is the actual owner
of the property in question and that alleged purchasers of the
said land have also taken a loan from the bank for
purchasing the land of the complainant. During
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investigation, name of the applicant came into light and,
upon investigation, Investigating Officer filed charge-sheet
No. 98/12, dated 09.12.2012 against the applicant, under
Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 & 120-B of I.P.C. Learned
Judicial Magistrate took cognizance in the matter and
summoned the accused persons to face trial. Thus, feeling
aggrieved, applicant has approached this Court.
3. Learned counsel for the applicant submits that the
applicant is not named in the F.I.R.; that complainant’s land
was sold to the persons in joint names of Mr. Ranvir Singh &
Smt. Komal in the presence of two other witnesses and the
applicant was not present at the time of execution of the sale
deed; that there are no signatures of the applicant on the
alleged forged sale deed dated 17.06.2010, thus, the
applicant has never been the beneficiary of the alleged sale
deed, except for fact that one of the accused named in the
F.I.R. was the servant of the applicant, who had expired
during investigation; that purchasers of the alleged land had
obtained the loan of ₹15,00,000/- from District Cooperative
Bank, Dehradun on the guarantee of Mr. Sanjay S/o Sri
Mukandi Lal and Smt. Sunita W/o Sanjay and the applicant
was, in no way, associated with the purchasers of the said
land or with the District Cooperative Bank and the applicant
had never signed any document in support of sanctioning the
loan to accused/purchasers of the land; that, Inquiry Officer,
in the Inquiry Report dated 06.09.2012, has stated that the
accused in the instant case are Mr. Ranvir and Smt. Komal,
whose actual names are Sunil Kumar and Smt. Kiran and
other main accused is Mr. Prakash Singh, who was the
servant of the applicant; that P.W.-1, P.W.-2 and P.W.-3, in
their testimony before the trial Court, did not support the
prosecution story and has not assigned any specific role to
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the applicant in the instant crime.
4. Per contra, learned State Counsel as well as
learned counsel appearing for respondent no.2 submit that
although applicant was not named in the F.I.R.; but, during
investigation, his complicity in the crime appeared and
credible evidence was found against him. They submit that,
only after collecting the credible evidences, the charge sheet
was filed against the applicant and learned Judicial
Magistrate, after examining the evidence on record, has
rightly summoned the applicant to face the trial.
5. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused
the material available on record.
6. There is a fundamental difference between a
person executing a sale deed, claiming that the property
conveyed is his property, and a person executing a sale deed
by impersonating the owner or falsely claiming to be
authorized or empowered by the owner, to execute the deed
on owner’s behalf. When a person executes a document
conveying a property describing it as his, there are two
possibilities. The first is that he bona fide believes that the
property actually belongs to him. The second is that he may
be dishonestly or fraudulently claiming it to be his even
though he knows that it is not his property. But to fall under
first category of “false documents”, it is not sufficient that a
document has been made or executed dishonestly or
fraudulently. There is a further requirement that it should
have been made with the intention of causing it to be
believed that such document was made or executed by, or by
the authority of a person, by whom or by whose authority he
knows that it was not made or executed. When a document
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is executed by a person claiming a property which is not his,
he is not claiming that he is someone else nor is he claiming
that he is authorized by someone else. Therefore, execution
of such document (purporting to convey some property of
which he is not the owner) is not execution of a false
document as defined under Section 464 of the Code. If what
is executed is not a false document, there is no forgery. If
there is no forgery, then neither Section 467 nor Section 471
of the Code are attracted. Any effort to settle civil disputes
and claims, which do not involve any criminal offence, by
applying pressure through criminal prosecution should be
deprecated and discouraged.
7. Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of “State of
Karnataka Vs. L. Muniswamy, reported in (1977) 2 SCC 699,
has held as under:
“7. … In the exercise of this wholesome power, the
High Court is entitled to quash a proceeding if it
comes to the conclusion that allowing the
proceeding to continue would be an abuse of the
process of the Court or that the ends of justice
require that the proceeding ought to be quashed.
The saving of the High Court’s inherent powers,
both in civil and criminal matters, is designed to
achieve a salutary public purpose which is that a
court proceeding ought not to be permitted to
degenerate into a weapon of harassment or
persecution. In a criminal case, the veiled object
behind a lame prosecution, the very nature of the
material on which the structure of the prosecution
rests and the like would justify the High Court in
quashing the proceeding in the interest of justice.”
8. Similarly, in the case of “Anand Kumar Mohatta &
another Vs. State (NCT of Delhi), Department of Home &
another” reported in (2019) 11 SCC 706, has reiterated the
observation made in the case of State of Karnataka Vs. L.
Muniswamy (supra).
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9. Thus, in view of the law laid down by Hon’ble
Supreme Court in the aforesaid cases, this Court has no
hesitation in quashing the impugned charge-sheet dated
09.12.2012 and also the entire proceedings of Criminal Case
No.224 of 2013 pending against the applicant in the Court of
IInd Additional Civil Judge (Junior Division)/Judicial
Magistrate, Dehradun, under Section 420, 467, 468, 471 &
120-B of I.P.C.
10. Accordingly, this criminal miscellaneous
application under Section 482 Cr.P.C. is allowed. Impugned
charge sheet No.98/2012, dated 09.12.2012 as well as entire
proceedings of Criminal Case No.224 of 2013 pending in the
Court of IInd Additional Civil Judge (Junior Division)/
Judicial Magistrate, Dehradun, qua the applicant, are hereby
quashed.
(Alok Mahra, J.)
19.06.2025
Arpan
ARPAN
Digitally signed by ARPAN JAISWAL
DN: c=IN, o=HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND, ou=HIGH
COURT OF UTTARAKHAND,
2.5.4.20=eabb68a3895e41937c266c23964c0485365445e3a
20dddb7393398f9fe45ba3e, postalCode=263001,
JAISWAL
st=UTTARAKHAND,
serialNumber=060FC17022BEAE3DE215D68D9D454C5109C
B987446351E4DF04AADAA2C2CEA66, cn=ARPAN JAISWAL
Date: 2025.06.19 17:49:01 +05’30’
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