BALBIR KUMAR VERMA Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BALBIR Kumar Verma, Distributor of Indane, Mandi Darapur Urmar Tanda, District Hoshiarpur, has moved the present petition under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and has prayed that FIR No. 96 of 10-6-1990 of Police Station Tanda for offence under Section 419/420 of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, be quashed.

(2.) BRIEFLY , the allegations against Balbir Kumar Verma, the Cooking Gas Dealer, are that on 1-9-1989, the complainant paid a sum of Rs. 2500/- to the aforesaid dealer and then he was able to secure connection of cooking gas and that now he came to know that in reality this connection was in the name of Mohan Singh, resident of Anaj Mandi, Tanda.

(3.) ANOTHER important feature of this case is that the Consumer No. 0530 was in the name of Mohan Singh a resident of Anaj Mandi Tanda. It could not be ruled out that Mohan Singh was never a bonafide consumer of cooking gas inasmuch as the correspondence which emanated from the office of Indian Oil Corporation, Ltd, Sector 8-C, Chandigarh (Annexure P-1) shows that the head office of the Indian Oil Corporation had issued a cooking gas connection in favour of Mohan Singh and that too on the recommendation of M/s Ram Chandra and Sons. Cooking Gas Agents of Chandigarh on account of the transfer of Mohan Singh from Chandigarh to Tanda. Mohan Singh was never a complainant.