Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Alchemist Holdings Ltd. vs Ram Kumar Garg on 1 December, 2014
Bench: Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya, N.V. Ramana
ITEM NO.49 COURT NO.4 SECTION IIB
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No(s). 8731/2013
(Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 13/08/2013
in CRLM No.M-20397/2013 passed by the High Court of Punjab &
Haryana at Chandigarh)
ALCHEMIST HOLDINGS LTD. Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
RAM KUMAR GARG & ANR. Respondent(s)
(with appln. (s) for exemption from filing c/c of the impugned
order and stay and office report)
Date : 01/12/2014 This petition was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SUDHANSU JYOTI MUKHOPADHAYA
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE N.V. RAMANA
For Petitioner(s) Mr. Jayant Bhushan, Adv.
Mr. Prasenjit Keswani, Adv.
Ms. Sonia Dube, Adv.
Mr. S. Chakraborty, Adv.
M/s. Legal Options,Adv.
For Respondent(s) Mr. V. Prakash, Sr. Adv.
Mr. Siddharth Mittal, Adv.
Ms. Anubha Agarwal, Adv.
Mr. S. K. Sabharwal,Adv.
Mr. Sudarshan Singh Rawat,Adv.
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
Leave granted.
The appeal stands disposed of in terms of the Signed Order.
Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by Rajni Mukhi Date: 2014.12.03 16:43:01 IST Reason: (Rajni Mukhi) (Suman Jain)
Sr. P.A. Court Master
(Signed Order is placed on the file) IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 2527 OF 2014 (Arising out of SLP Crl.) No. 8731 of 2013) ALCHEMIST HOLDINGS LTD. ...APPELLANT VERSUS RAM KUMAR GARG & ANR. ...RESPONDENTS O R D E R Leave granted.
This appeal has been preferred by the complainant against the order dated 13th August, 2013 passed by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh in Criminal Misc. No. M-20397 of 2013. By the impugned Order, the interim order dated 27.06.2013 passed by the High Court granting interim bail in favour of the respondent-accused was made absolute with following observation:
“I have gone through the record and heard learned counsel for the parties.
From the record, I find that the complainant has advanced the loan of about 6 Crores to the petitioner. It was the duty of the complainant also to verify whether the petitioner is the sole proprietor or only a partner in the firm especially when the complainant is advancing loan of 6 Crores. Secondly, civil suit for recovery of the loan amount is already pending before the Civil Court. As regards the cheque, which has been dishonoured, the complainant is seeking the remedy under Section 138 of the NI Act and a complaint is stated to be pending. A mere fact that in the agreement it is written as sole proprietor instead of partner does not constitute a criminal offence. Similarly, learned senior counsel for the petitioner has stated that at
- 2- the time of execution of the agreement the title deed of plot No.5 was with the Bank, which was to be redeemed after making the payment and on this ground also no criminal offence is made out.” Having heard the learned counsel for the parties, we are of the view that the High Court was not supposed to decide the merits of the case while dealing with application for anticipatory bail. It was not open to the High Court to observe that no criminal offence is made out, in a petition filed under Section 438 of Cr.P.C.
For the reason aforesaid, we set aside the impugned order dated 13.08.2013 passed by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh in Criminal Miscellaneous No. M-20397 of 2013 and remit the matter to the High Court to decide the case independently without deciding the merits of the main case, after notice to the concerned parties including the complainant uninfluenced by the order passed by this Court.
............................J. [SUDHANSU JYOTI MUKHOPADHAYA] …..........................J. [N.V. RAMANA] NEW DELHI;
DECEMBER 01, 2014