KAMLA DEVI AGARWAL Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are anticipatory bail petitions moved on behalf of the petitioners in relation to FIR No. 631/2019 registered at Police Station Jawahar Nagar District Sri Ganga Nagar for the offences punishable under Sec. (s) 420, 406 and 120B of the IPC and Sec. 23 of the Forward Contracts (Regulations) Act.

(2.) I may briefly refer to relevant aspects of the case as emerging from F.I.R. lodged on 22/12/2019, which inter alia are that complainant M/s. Ganpati Multi Commodities Business (India) Pvt. Ltd. is engaged in business of commodity brokerage with memberships in NCDEX and MCX. Dr. Jitendra Mittal is director of the company. The company facilitates exchange-related services as a broker to its customers. NCDEX and MCX provide online trading platforms for commodity contracts, where any buyer or seller can place their orders through a broker and these orders are executed on the exchange's system. The exchange deposits an upfront margin in advance from clients through its broker prior to placement of orders and also collects additional margin money on a daily basis through the broker. Since its inception, the complainant company has maintained a high reputation in market with a turnover of approximately Rs.12,556.00 crores in the financial year 2018-19.

(3.) It is stated that all the six petitioners as detailed in the FIR, belong to same family. They opened six commodity trading accounts with complainant in their individual names as well as in the name of their firms. The specific details of these accounts are also mentioned in the FIR. It is alleged that from the very beginning, intention of petitioners was to make profits only and not to make-up losses. In last week of September 2019, there was a significant fluctuation in prices of castor seed commodity on the exchange. The prices of castor seed contracts were consistently hitting lower circuit since 25/9/2019, which continued for more than a week. Due to decline in prices, petitioners were incurring daily losses in their trading accounts. On 25/9/2019, there were transactions worth Rs.700.00 crores on the exchange for trading of castor seed, out of which the petitioners had taken a buying position of Rs.150.00 crores. The petitioners were repeatedly asked by the complainant to deposit the required margin money. Due to continuous losses incurred by the petitioners in trading of castor seed as well as failure to maintain/deposit required margin in their trading accounts, the Exchange squared of all trading transactions of the petitioners to cover up losses and adjusted/forfeited the losses incurred by petitioners from margin money of complainant and its other 120 clients. As on 30/9/2019 complainant, on his behalf had maintained a huge amount of margin money to the Exchange from his own sources as well from sources of his 120 other clients. The petitioners have dishonestly and fraudulently cheated the complainant and his clients amounting to approximately Rs.40.04 crore by 15/10/2019, causing the complainant's entire business to come to a halt and resulting in significant damage to the complainant's goodwill as well as ruining of clients of complainant. When petitioners were asked to deposit or settle the liability, they refused and started threatening the complainant.