KANISHK SINHA Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) The appellants before this Court are husband and wife (appellant no.1 & 2, respectively), who are aggrieved by an order dtd. 27/6/2024 passed by the learned Single Judge of the Calcutta High Court by which the criminal revisions of the present appellants were dismissed. The appellants are accused in two different cases, the first registered as a First Information Report ('FIR') at police station Bhowanipur, Kolkata as FIR No.179 of 2010 dtd. 27/4/2010 under Ss. 120B, 420, 467, 468, 469, 471 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 ('IPC'), read with Sec. 66A (a)(b)(c) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 ('IT Act'). In the instant case, the complainant was Keyur Majumder. The second FIR which was initially moved as a complaint before the Ld. Magistrate, and the Ld. Magistrate in exercise of powers under Sec. 190 read with 156(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 ('CrPC') directed registration of an FIR. The complainant in this case was Supriti Bandopadhyay, and the second FIR was registered as FIR No.298 of 2011 dtd. 8/6/2011 at police station Bhowanipur, Kolkata under Ss. 466, 469, 471 read with 120B(ii) of IPC.

(3.) The nature of allegations in these two cases is similar against the appellants, relating to forgery, fraud, deception, cheating, damage caused to reputation, unlawful extraction of money, threat, misrepresentation and criminal conspiracy etc. In fact, six revisions were filed by the appellants before the Calcutta High Court regarding the filing of charge sheet, as well as against certain interim orders passed by the Lower Court. But that is not very relevant. What is relevant is the only point which has been raised by the appellants in their revisions before the High Court, which was that not only are these FIRs motivated and false, and thus liable to be quashed, but also that the second FIR has been registered on the complaint which was filed before the Magistrate under Sec. 156(3) of CrPC, and it was not accompanied by an affidavit and therefore, the law as laid down by this Court in Priyanka Srivastava vs. State of Uttar Pradesh (2015) 6 SCC 287 has been violated as all such complaints should now be accompanied by an affidavit according to Priyanka Srivastava (supra). The learned Single Judge of the High Court was of the view that the directions of this Court in the above case could only operate prospectively and will not have any retrospective application, and will thus not be applicable to the complaint lodged against the appellants in the year 2010­2011.