Karam Singh vs Ved Parkash and ors.

S.S. Sodhi, J.

The matter here concerns a private complaint brought by the present petitioner against the respondents under sections 120B, 420 and 467 of the Indian Penal Code on the allegation that the respondents were commission agents through whom the petitioner had been selling his produce. The petitioner, it is said, had taken loan of Rs. 10,000/ from Ved Parkash respondent on November 19, 1980. Taking advantage of the illiteracy of the petitioner, Ved Parkash, in collusion with other respondents forged an agreement for the sale of land and thereby prepared a false record to cause wrongful loss to the petitioner as he did not send his foodgrains for sale to the respondents'' shop. The trial magistrate, after taking into account the evidence led, came to the conclusion that there were no sufficient grounds to proceed with the complaint and consequently dismissed it.

In revision, the Sessions Judge, Kurukshetra, by his impugned order of March 3, 1987 dismissed the petitioner''s revision petition holding that in view of the provisions of section 195 (1)(c) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, no cognizance could be taken of the offence in question on a private complaint in view of the fact that the alleged forged document was also the subject matter of adjudication in civil proceedings between the parties. In holding so, the learned Judge purported to follow the rationale of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Gopalakrishna Menon and another v. D. Raja Reddy and another, 1983(2) Recent Criminal Reports 354 : AIR 1983 Supreme Court 1053.

The judgment of the Supreme Court in Gopalakrishna Menon''s case (supra), was considered by a Full Bench of this Court in Harbans Singh and ors. v. The State of Punjab, 1986(2) Recent Criminal Reports 481 : 1987(1) CLR 315, where it was held that "Session 195(1)(b)(ii) of the new Code is limited in its operation only to the offences mentioned in this section if committed in regard to a document produced or given in evidence in such proceedings, while the document is in the custody of the Court. It has on application to a case in which such a document is fabricated prior to its production or given in evidence." Such thus being the interpretation of the judgment of the Supreme Court, there can be no escape from the conclusion that the present complaint of the petitioner was indeed competent.

As regards the merits of the case, the material on record was gone into with the assistance of the counsel for the parties and a reading thereof shows that it does indeed warrant further enquiry. In order to avoid any possible prejudice being caused, as desired by the counsel for the parties, no other opinion is expressed with regard to the material on record except to record the conclusion that the trial magistrate erred in dismissing the complaint. The matter is accordingly sent back to the trial court for further inquiry in accordance with law.

This petition is thus accepted.