TIRUPATI PANIGRAHI Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants being common to all these five Criminal Appeals and the questions raised also being common, for sake of convenience, all these appeals have been heard together and the common judgment to follow shall dispose of all of them.

(2.) All these five criminal appeals correspond to five separate C.T. cases in which the learned Designated Court, Cuttack has taken cognizance of the offence under Section 6 of the Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act, 2011 (for short "the OPID Act") against the accused-appellants as per separate orders passed in those C.T. Cases on 04.11.2015. The common accused-appellants now challenge the legality and propriety of the orders of cognizance in so far as the same relate to the offence under Section 6 of the OPID Act on the ground that the corresponding G.R. Cases of those C.T. Cases had been registered before the learned S.D.J.M., Bhubaneswar in the year 2012, i.e., before the OPID Act came into force having no retrospective effect. The continuance of the proceedings before the Designated Court is also challenged by the accused- appellants on the ground that in compliance with the order of the Apex Court they having already deposited an amount of Rs.63,55,49,227/- towards the total money collected from the depositors, to be refunded to them, the same has the effect of compounding of the offence under Section 6 of the OPID Act in view of Section 7 of the OPID Act (as it stood before the amendment brought into force with effect from 13.11.2016), and hence, the order of taking cognizance under Section 6 of the OPID Act is bad in law. The appellants seek for an order to quash the order of cognizance under Section 6 of the OPID Act with a direction to the designated Court to send back the cases to the common Criminal Court, i.e., SDJM, Bhubaneswar for their trial for the offences under the Indian Penal Code only.

(3.) As it appears, the G.R. Cases were registered by the police in the year 2012 for different offences under the Indian Penal Code, but after coming into force of the OPID Act, charge-sheets were filed under Section 6 of the said Act besides other offences under the I.P.C. against the accused- appellants. Thereafter, keeping in view the provision under Section 8(3) of the OPID Act, the learned S.D.J.M., Bhubaneswar transferred all those G.R. cases to the Designated Court who took cognizance of the offence under Section 6 of the OPID Act and other offences under the I.P.C. against the accused-appellants vide the order dated 04.11.2015.