Aniruddha Kar v. State of West Bengal
In the Calcutta High Court
C.R.R. 244/2015
Before Justice Shib Sadhan Sadhu
Decided on February 20, 2015

Relevancy of the case: Quashing an FIR filed for creating fake documents to register a new company

Statutes & Provisions Involved

• The Information Technology Act, 2000 (Section 65, 71, 73, 74)
• The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Section 482)

Relevant Facts of the Case

• The complainant is the director of MRS Management Services Private Limited Company. At the same address, a new company was formed with the name MRS Agro Tech Limited.
• The petitioners who are the managing director, officers, directors of the new company conceived a criminal conspiracy to deprive the complainant(s) of their legitimate rights on the company by taking the company from the complainants.
• The petitioners have prepared several forged and false documents fraudulently and dishonestly. These documents mainly included applications, certificates, board resolution, and forms. These documents were made using mediums like printer, scanner, internet and various other electronic gadgets.
• The petitioners have created the fake signature of the complainant and it was produced before the R.O.C., West Bengal Circle through e-mails. Thereby, the petitioners grabbed the company of the respondents illegally and caused a loss of Rs. 20,00,000. A case was filed by the complainant before the Metropolitan Magistrate, Calcutta.
• The petitioners have filed this appeal to quash the entire proceedings in case number 4437.

Prominent Arguments by the Advocates

The petitioners’ counsel:

• The petitioner is a bonafide shareholder of the company and the petitioner had no necessity of doing such a forgery as far as the commission of such an offence is concerned. Hence, the proceedings of the impugned case are liable to be quashed.

The respondent’s counsel:

• The counsel for the respondent argued that the statements in the case diary and the FIR contents clearly indicate that there was a criminal conspiracy to cheat the respondent by forging documents and the signature. Hence, the proceedings of the case need not be quashed.

Opinion of the Bench

• The court cited the judgement of Amit Kapoor v. Ramesh Chander [(2013) 1 SCC (Cri) 986] in which the test as to whether the documents provided and the uncontroverted claims made from the case provided therewith prima facie create the offence or not was given. If in case the allegations in the case are so absurd, that a conclusion to the case cannot be drawn by a prudent man and essentials of a criminal case are missing, then the court can interfere.
• It was held that the court should not hasten to quash the proceedings of the case.

Final Decision

• The revision application is dismissed. No order is given as to the costs.

This case summary has been prepared by Afsana Khan, an undergraduate student at Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad, during her internship with The Cyber Blog India in June/July 2020.