ABHIKSHEK SHAH Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present petition has been filed under Sec. 482 Cr.P.C. seeking quashing of FIR No. 35 dtd. 10/3/2019, under Sec. 354-A IPC, registered at Police Station Women, Gurgaon, District Gurugram (Annexure P-8) and all the subsequent proceedings arising therefrom including the challan/final report under Sec. 354-A IPC (Annexure P-9).

(2.) The facts in brief are that the petitioner is the Director of CommerceX Solutions Private Limited Company (for short 'the company'), which had hired the complainant as a Business Manager (North) vide appointment letter dtd. 19/3/2018. As per the version narrated in the FIR, the company had planned an organization event on 20/10/2018, which was required to be attended by all the employees. The complainant, being a member of the core team, was managing the network side and was thus expected to be present at the event. However, due to a health emergency, the complainant was constrained to apply for a 04 day medical leave, which she did vide email dtd. 16/10/2018 addressed to the petitioner. In response, the petitioner vide email dtd. 17/10/2018 requested the complainant to adjust the medical procedure and plan the same after the event of the organization. Thereafter on 17/10/2018, multiple e-mails were exchanged between the complainant and the petitioner, during the course of which certain cuss words were used, whereupon the complainant conveyed that she was resigning from her job. The said resignation was accepted at 5.58 P.M. on email dtd. 17/10/2018. After accepting the resignation of the complainant, her official email ID was suspended. It was clarified to the complainant that since she has left the job without any prior notice, therefore as per the terms of the letter of appointment, two months' salary of the complainant was the compensation due to the company and the termination clause of the appointment letter could be brought into force, however, keeping in mind the reputation of the company, vide email dtd. 4/11/2018, the complainant was offered a clear exit from the company. Thereafter a legal notice was issued to the complainant on 11/11/2018 for discarding all digital/non digital information related to the company list, contract, proposals, internal process etc. of the company and not to engage or deal with the clients of the company. The complainant vide reply dtd. 22/11/2018 to the said legal notice, raised a claim for salary for the period of 17 days for the month of October 2018 alongwith two months' notice period salary and incentive totalling to Rs.1,00,000.00; Rs.25,000.00 towards legal fee; no negative feedback; a written apology from the petitioner and a MoU. In the response of the company dtd. 4/12/2018, the complainant was again called upon to comply with the legal notice regarding breach of contract. Thereafter on 22/2/2019 i.e. after about more than 04 months from her resignation from the company, the complainant got lodged the present FIR against the petitioner with the allegations of harassment, and use of derogatory and abusive language.

(3.) The learned senior counsel for the petitioner has argued that petitioner has falsely been implicated in the present case by the complainant- respondent No. 2, who was working as a Business Manager in the company of the petitioner. The present FIR has been lodged by the complainant after four months from her resignation, after she was served with a legal notice for breach of contract. It is further argued that the present FIR is an abuse of process of law and has been lodged only to pressurize the petitioner to accede to the unreasonable demands of the complainant made in the legal notice dtd. 11/11/2018 (Annexure P-5). Learned senior counsel has further argued that during investigation, neither the statements of any of the employees of the company were recorded, nor the legal notices exchanged between the parties were taken into consideration.