ASHOK KUMAR SHARMA Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has invoked the inherent jurisdiction of this Court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for the quashment of the order impugned dated 21.9.2010 passed by the Sessions Judge, Sahibganj in Criminal Revision No. 50 of 2010 by which the order dated 25.6.2010 recorded by the CJM. Sahibganj in Sahibganj (T) P.S. Case No. 216 of 2009, corresponding to G.R. No. 493 of 2009 was set aside.

(2.) The prosecution story in short was that the Officer-in-Charge of Sahibganj Police Station on secret information that Rose Valley Company was cheating the local people by claiming to refund the double amount within a year on the investment made and was preparing forged documents, the informant Officer-in-Charge visited the office of the said company and asked the Branch Manager to produce the memorandum of Articles of the Company and also registration as per the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India. But as the same could not be produced, the police registered a case under Sections 467/468/471/420 of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 58(B)(5-A) of the R.B.I. Act and seized the documents, vouchers, money receipts, computers, ledger books, forms and other signed papers of Rose Valley Company with other valuable articles. The petitioner was arrested on the same day but later on granted ball by this Court in B.A. No. 1043 of 2010 on 25.2.2010 considering the fact that Rose Valley Company was a licence Company of Rose Valley Chain Marketing System Limited, holding licence. The petitioner then filed an application before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Sahibganj for release of the seized articles but it was rejected vide order dated 25.6.2010 on the ground that investigation was in progress and that items seized as contained in Sr. No. 1 of 46 of the seizure list including the computers and cash book entries were essential items required during course of investigation. Against the impugned order the petitioner preferred Criminal Revision No. 50 of 2011 before the Sessions Judge, Sahibganj which was also rejected vide order dated 21.9.2010 observing that the matter was still under investigation and that the relevant registers, documents, ledger books and accounts book were relevant documents for investigation of the case.

(3.) Learned counsel Mr. Rajesh Kumar, appearing for the petitioner submitted that the learned Courts below failed to appreciate that the police had suo motu raided the business premises of the petitioner merely on suspicion that his company was not having proper licence under Section 54-B (5-A) of the R.B.I. Act, 1934 so the documents, computers, hard disk seized by the police were not relevant for investigation and did if at all these documents were required then its copy could be made available for the use of the I.O. by returning the originals to the petitioner. The main part of the investigation was virtually over because earlier also the Superintendent of Police had made supervision of the investigation and had asked the General Manager, R.B.I. to which reply was made that the Company under the name and style Rose Valley Company was registered having its Registration No. 21-89311 dated 3.5.1999 and certificate of incorporation and certificate of commencement of business were issued from the Registrar of the Company, West Bengal and this fact was immediately replied by the R.B.I. clarifying that the Company of the petitioner did not fall within the purview of R.B.I. and its activities were properly regularized by National Housing Bank (Annexure - 3).