MOHAMMED MOQUIM Vs. STATE OF ODISHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Appellant has been convicted for commission of offences under Ss. 468, 471, 420 and Sec. 120-B of the Indian Penal Codeand sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for three years for each such offence along with payment of fine of Rs.50,000.00.

(2.) Appellant is the Managing Director of M/s. Metro Builders Pvt. Ltd. There were five accused persons and the present Appellant was Accused No.4. Accused No.1 (Vinod Kumar) was the Managing Director of Orissa Rural Housing Development Corporation (ORHDC) and Accused No.2 (Swosti Ranjan Mohapatra) was its Company Secretary. Accused No.3 was M/s. Metro Builders Pvt. Ltd. and Accused No.5 was the Director of M/s. Metro Builders Pvt. Ltd.

(3.) Prosecution case in brief is that ORHDC, incorporated on 19/8/1994 before the Registrar of Companies, is a Government owned Corporation and its objective was to act as the principal institution for financing, promoting and developing the rural housing and related activities. Accused No.1 and 2, who are the Managing Director and Company Secretary of ORHDC, while discharging their public duties as such, have illegally sanctioned and disbursed the loan amount of Rs.1.5 Crore to M/s. Metro Builders Pvt. Ltd. by abusing their position and without such financial power on their part and without keeping adequate security for the loan amount, and thereby caused wrongful financial loss to ORHDC. It is alleged that M/s. Metro Builders Pvt. Ltd. was a known defaulter to ORHDC as they had not repaid the previous loan amount of Rs.1.00 Crore taken for their project Metro City I. Present Appellant being its Managing Director managed to get further loan amount of Rs.1.5 Crore along with other co-accused (Piyushdhari Mohanty) in the guise of its new project Metro City II in conspiracy with Accused No.1 and 2, who are the officials of ORHDC. Out of said loan amount of Rs.1.5 Crore, Rs.50.00 lakhs was adjusted towards repayment of the previous loan of Rs.1.00 Crore. Further, the loan was disbursed in favour of the Appellant and his company without execution of any registered mortgage deed or tripartite agreement. It is alleged that though the loan of Rs.1.5 Crore was availed for the purpose of construction of apartment, the tripartite agreement between ORHDC, loanee builder and the flat owners was required to be executed. Further, the entire loan amount was disbursed on 28/8/2000 without the authority of the Board of Directors of ORHDC and without having requisite financial power by the Managing Director, ORHDC. The Managing Director, ORHDC did not have any financial power to sanction any loan amount, but only for the first time the Board of Directors authorized the Managing Director in its meeting dtd. 31/8/2000, i.e. three days after the sanction of alleged loan amount, to sanction the loan up to Rs.5,00,000.00 only. So the Managing Director of ORHDC was not authorized to sanction any loan amount prior to 31/8/2000 that too to the extent of Rs.1.5 Crore. It is also alleged that the loan amount was sanctioned in favour of the Appellant and M/s. Metro Builders Pvt. Ltd. in conspiracy between all the accused persons and for that purpose many documents were forged by the Appellant and the rules have been violated. The Appellant managed to get further loan of Rs.1.5 Crore in the guise of the project Metro City II without paying the previous loan amount taken from ORHDC and by forging the documents like fire certificate and other documents. Such forged documents have been used by the Appellant and other accused persons as genuine documents with knowledge and reason to believe the same as forged documents.