SWAMI DHIRENDRA BRAHAMCHARI Vs. SHAILENDAR BHUSHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Vishwayatan Yogashran (herein referred as Yogashram) is a society registered under the Registration of Societies Act, 1860 with its registered office at Ashoka Road, New Delhi. The petitioner is its Managing Trustee. On August 18, 1989 an advertisement was inserted by the Yogashram in the HindustanTimes inviting applications both from male and female candidates for admission to its one year Yoga training course which was to commence from September 15, 1989 at Vishwayatan Yogashram, KatraVaishnavi Devi,J&K. Since the said advertisement is at the centre storm of the whole matter, let me reproduce the same. It runs as under:-

(2.) Consequent upon this advertisement number of candidates applied and some of them were even selected and admilted. It may be mentioned that all the selected candidates had deposited RS.1,000.00 each as caution money. The Course started on September 15, 1989 at Katra Vaishnavi Devi. However, it was later revealed that it was actually not recognised. This led to the lodging of the First Information Report by one of the students namely Shalinder Bhushan. It was alleged that he and other successful candidates had been falsely made to believe that the Course was recognised by the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare,Government of lndia,though it was not and that on account of deception so practiced, the complainant and the other students were cheated of Rs.1,000.00 each which were deposited by them as caution money and that even otherwise their time and energy were wasted. The complaint so lodged, as already noticed, led to the recording of First Information Report against the petitioner under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. Consequent upon the completion of the investigation challan was filed under section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and admittedly the proceedings were pending before the Metropolitan Magistrate at the time of the filing of the present petition for quashing of the proceedings.

(3.) Mr.B.D.Batra, advocate, who has appeared tor the petitioner, has pressed for the relief claimed on the ground that the course in question was actually recognised by the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare (Government of India) and that consequently the petitioner could not be taken to have cheated any one of the successful candidates. In support my attention was particularly drawn to two letters, one of which is of May 17, 1990 issued by the Government of India, Ministry of Human Resource Development (Department of Education) under the signatures of one S.K.Grover, Assistant Educational Adviser and addressed to the Station House Officer, Police Station Parliament Street. The relevant portion of that letter runs as under:-