VIJAY BAHADUR SINGH Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The instant application under sections 397, 401 and 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code is for quashing the criminal proceeding in G.R. Case No. 2205 of 1996 pending in the 12th court of Metropolitan Magistrate, Calcutta.

(2.) How the aforesaid proceeding arose may be stated thus : By an order dated 6.2.95 passed in C.O. No. 5437(W) of 1994, Justice Samaresh Banerjea sitting in a single Bench held that the order dated 29th March, 1994 which appeared in the order-sheet of the concerned record of the C.O.5437(W) of 1994 was not at all the order which was actually passed by His Lordship in the said proceeding. His Lordship directed the Registrar, Appellate Side to cause an inquiry to find out as to what was his exact order that was passed on 29th March, 1994 in C.O.5437(W) of 1994. The Registrar was directed to find out which particular court officer had taken the dictation of the order in question on the said date and to take out the transcript of that order from the relevant short hand note-book. In pursuance of that direction the Registrar submitted his report along with the relevant transcript taken out from the relevant shorthand note-book and after examining the same, Justice Banerjea by his subsequent order dated 10th February, 1995 passed in C.O.5437(W) of 1994 reiterated his finding that the purported order dated 29th March 1994 was forged and observed that since the matter involves forgery of court record including the signature of the presiding Judge of the court, it required indepth investigation so that whosoever be the person involved in such forgery cannot go unpunished. The petitioner of the present revisional application appeared before Justice Banerjea on 10.2.94 and claimed that he had acted as Special Officer of a school in pursuance of the order dated 29.3.94 of the court passed in C.O.5437(W) of 1994 and that a copy of that order was served upon him by a forwarding letter addressed by Gayatri Chowdhury, the advocate on record of the writ petitioner. Justice Banerjea by his order dated 10.2.95 placed on record that the present petitioner was never appointed as Special Officer by him. In support of such claim, the petitioner produced before Justice Banerjea a xerox copy of the letter. The said letter was addressed to different authorities who are respondents in the concerned proceeding. Justice Banerjea directed them to produce the said letter along with xerox copy of the purported order dated 29.3.94. Pursuance to that direction, different respondents appeared before Justice Banerjea and submitted copies of the letters of Gayatri Chowdhury received by them. The District Inspector of Schools submitted that it was the petitioner who served the letter of Gayatri Chowdhury. The Director, Secondary School Education also submitted before Justice Banerjea that his office did not receive any communication from Gayatri Chowdhury. Gaytri Chowdhury, who was the Advocate on record for the writ petitioner did not appear before Justice Banerjea on any of the occasions after she detected the forgery as she was hospitalised due to her serious illness and subsequently expired. In the circumstances, His Lordship considered it difficult to find out who were involved in that forgery. His Lordship was of the view that an investigation should be made by an expert investigating agency to find out the persons involved in the forgery and considering the gravity of the offences. His Lordship by his order dated 27.3.95 directed the DIG of Police, CBI Calcutta to investigate for the purpose of finding out who are the persons responsible for the forgery of the court record and the signature of the presiding Judge of the court and also to submit the report before His Lordship within certain specified time. The Registrar was directed to make all such necessary records available to the investigating agency. By the said order dated 27.3.95, His Lordship also made it clear that the CBI after such investigation would be at liberty to take all action in accordance with law including criminal prosecution against the offenders. His Lordship directed the Registrar to serve a copy of this order on the CBI for taking necessary action and in pursuance of this direction, the Registrar by his letter dated 5.4.95 forwarded a copy of the order dated 27.3.95 to the CBI for necessary action. Since the order dated 27.3.95 passed by Justice Banerjea disclosed commission of cognizable offences by the present petitioner and others, the CBI treated it as FIR and started a case under section 120B, 420, 467, 471 and 477A of the IPC. After investigation, the CBI submitted its charge-sheet on 30.8.96 against the present petitioner. According to the charge-sheet, investigation revealed that Vijay Bahadur Singh, a practising lawyer of Calcutta High Court, dishonestly and fraudulently got a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution on 22.3.94 in the name of S.S. Dubey v. State of West Bengal through one J.N. Rao after forging the signature of the said J.N. Rao. The investigation further revealed that the petitioner caused the removal of the original order dated 29.3.94 passed by Justice Samaresh Banerjea in C.O.5437(W) of 1994 from the record and replaced it by a forged and fabricated order purporting to appoint himself as special officer of the School in question and empowering him to operate all the bank accounts of the said school. The investigation also revealed that on the strength of the said forged order, the present petitioner dishonestly induced the Secretary and teacher-in-charge of that school to believe that he was duly appointed as the Special Officer and directed the teacher-in-charge to act as per his advice. It was also established that the petitioner made various correspondences to the said school and issued a cheque of Rs. 28,080/- in favour of one A.P. Sinha unauthorisedly. The result of the investigation, according to the charge-sheet, made out a prima facie case under sections 192, 193, 420, 467, 468, 471 of the IPC.

(3.) Mr. V.B. Singh the petitioner appearing the person made the following points, in assailing the legality of the cognizance. The offences involved are specified in sub-clauses (i) and (ii) of clause (b) of sub section (1) of section 195 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and are alleged to have been committed in or in relation to a proceeding in a court and as such, for taking of cognizance of such offences, a court complaint would be necessary under sub section (1) of section 195, and since no complaint as contemplated under sub section (1) of section 195 CrPC was lodged with the Magistrate, taking of cognizance was bad in law, being the breach of the express prohibition contained in section 195 (1) CrPC. It was further contended by the petitioner that the procedure prescribed by section 340 of the CrPC for lodging complaint has not at all been followed in the instant case and as such, the cognizance was bad. The petitioner cited several decisions namely AIR 1956 Punjab 222 : Sugar Syndicate Bahadargarh v. Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Punjab, AIR 1956 S.C. 153 : Virindar Kumar Satyawadi v. The State of Punjab, AIR 1960 Madhya Pradesh 109 : Sheo Kumar Bhairo Prasad Sao v. N.P. Tripathi, AIR 1960 Supreme Court 133 : Dr. B.K. Pal Chaudhury v. State of Assam, 1985 CriLJ 1956: Shrikrishna Khatry v. Gobardhan Nath Tandon, 1997 CriLJ 999 : Prasanna Kumar Roy Karmakar v. State of West Bengal and 1997 CriLJ 4148 : Amzad Ali v. Marfat Ali Biswas.