VIPIN SAHNI Vs. CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) Exercising power under Sec. 239 Cr.P.C, the learned Special Judicial Magistrate, CBI Court, Ghaziabad, discharged the appellants herein of a charge under Ss. 420 and 120B IPC, vide order dtd. 31/8/2019 in Case No. 456 of 2012 arising out of RC-219 2011 (E) 0016 registered on the file of Police Station CBI, EO-1, New Delhi. Aggrieved thereby, the Central Bureau of Investigation (for short, 'CBI') approached the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, under Sec. 482 Cr.P.C, by way of Application U/S 482 No. 11426 of 2021. By order dtd. 20/1/2023 passed therein, the High Court set aside the discharge order and directed the learned Magistrate to proceed with the case against the appellants. Assailing the said order, they are before this Court.

(3.) The appellants had established Sunshine Educational and Development Society, NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh, and registered it under the Societies Registration Act in the year 2004. The aims and objectives of this Society, inter alia, included propagation of technical education. Appellant No. 1 was the Chairman of the said Society while his wife, viz., appellant No. 2, was its Secretary. In September, 2006, the Society acquired 4.90 acres of land in Greater NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh, on a 90-year lease from Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority, Gautambudh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, for setting up educational institutions. The Society filed application dtd. 22/1/2007 seeking approval of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to establish 'Business School of Delhi', offering a Post-Graduate Diploma Course in Business Management (PGDM), in an extent of one acre out of the leased land. In the application, the Society disclosed that a loan of Rs.5.75 Crore had been availed by it from Corporation Bank and that the outstanding loan stood at above Rs.3.00 Crore. It also disclosed, in response to clause 6(v), that a loan/mortgage had been raised against the land, by ticking the 'Yes' box. However, in the tabular form in the first page, against the query - 'Mortgaged with Bank - Yes/No', the answer was stated as 'No'. There was, thus, an apparent contradiction in the application itself. In any event, approval was accorded by the AICTE on 17/8/2007 to start the 'Business School of Delhi'.