DHANVIR SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS judgment shall dispose of Criminal Revision No. 642 of 1984 as also Criminal Misc. No. 3021 -M of 1984 which arise from an order of framing of charge against the respective two petitioners of each case.

(2.) WITHOUT burdening the judgment with detailed facts, it would suffice to mention that the petitioners herein are mother and son who have been arraigned as accused in a complaint preferred by Kiran Dev through his father and attorney Gurdev Singh, the other son of the mother accused. The complainant Kiran Dev had some land in the village Ghazipur. On 15.12.1980, he executed a general power of attorney in favour of his grandmother Chet Kaur. While in England Kiran Dev took some steps to cancel the power of attorney. Those steps did not include the cancellation of the power of attorney by a registered deed. Purporting to exercise the power so conferred on her, Chet Kaur accused vide three sale deeds dated 13.7.1981, 4.8.1981 and 11.8.1981 sold land measuring 19 Bighas 16 Biswas for an ostensible consideration of Rs. 1,15,000/ -. Thus on 11.1.1982, the complaint was filed under sections 406, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, and 120 -B I.P.C. against Chet Kaur and Dhanvir Singh accused -petitioners.

(3.) SHRI T.R. Bansal, Judicial Magistrate First Class, Rajpura, summoned the accused -petitioner since he took the view that the complainant had not been paid the amount received by Chet Kaur as sale consideration and thus the amount received by her stood misappropriated by her. At the pre -charge stage, the complainant in the presence of the accused persons led evidence. Gurdev Singh the attorney of the complainant appeared as P.W. 1 as the complainant himself. He was put to a searching cross -examination. In particular, it was introduced therein by the defence that a civil suit had been filed by the complainant for the recovery of the land sold and that the suit was pending in a Court at Rajpura. Obviously, the suit manifested the mind of the complainant that he was not submitting to the deeds of his attorney for he considered that on the date of the sale of the land she was no attorney at all. Shri L.R. Roozam, Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Rajpura, without assigning any reason, vide his order dated 18.4.1984 ordered the respective accused -Petitioners to be charged under section 409, I.P.C. but Dhanvir Singh with the aid of Section 120 -B I.P.C. All what the learned Magistrate observed was that there was sufficient evidence on the file on the basis of which both the accused could be charged for the offence as set out earlier.