Gujarat High Court
Mehulbhai Bhanuprasad Raval vs State Of Gujarat on 24 July, 2020
Author: Bela M. Trivedi
Bench: Bela M. Trivedi
R/CR.MA/8363/2020 ORDER
IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD
R/CRIMINAL MISC.APPLICATION NO. 8363 of 2020
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MEHULBHAI BHANUPRASAD RAVAL
Versus
STATE OF GUJARAT
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Appearance:
MR P P MAJMUDAR(5284) for the Applicant(s) No. 1
MS. MOXA THAKKAR,APP (2) for the Respondent(s) No. 1
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CORAM: HONOURABLE MS. JUSTICE BELA M. TRIVEDI
Date : 24/07/2020
ORAL ORDER
1. Rule. Learned APP Ms.Moxa Thakkar for the respondent State waives service of notice of Rule.
2. The present application has been preferred by the applicant - original accused No.1, seeking regular bail under Section 439 of Cr. P.C., in connection with the FIR being C. R No.11216008200112 of 2020 registered with Gandhinagar Sector7 Police Station, District Gandhinagar for the offences punishable under Section 406, 420, 409, 465, 467 and 114 of IPC.
3. The FIR in question came to be registered at the instance of the complainant Kalyan Desai, Head Clerk at the RTO, Gandhinagar on 20.3.2020, alleging inter alia that the said complaint was being lodged on the basis of the application given by the Assistant RTO, Gandhinagar in connection with the tax evasion of Rs.56,25,594/ in respect of twenty vehicles, by Page 1 of 10 Downloaded on : Sun Feb 21 23:54:03 IST 2021 R/CR.MA/8363/2020 ORDER tampering with the software of the RTO. It has been alleged further that in the month of April, 2019, the audit was carried out at the RTO, Gandhinagar by the office of the Accountants General, Ahmedabad, during which the said nonpayment of tax in respect of the 20 vehicles was detected. On the basis of the numbers of registration, the addresses of the registered owners were traced and the notices were issued to them. One of the owners of the vehicle bearing the Registration No.GJ18AZ9493 had made payment of tax with penalty to the tune of Rs.2,48,352/, as the tax receipt shown by him was found to be false. Similarly, two other owners of the other vehicles had also made payment of the tax amount in respect of their vehicles. After narrating the broad procedure being carried out for the registration of the vehicles, it was further alleged in the complaint that out of the said 20 vehicles, 5 to 6 vehicles were registered by the dealers without giving temporary registration certificate, in collusion with the broker Chirag Patel - accused No.1 and some unknown persons. On the further inquiry, it was found that none of the officers or the employees of the RTO had made any entry using their User ID and Password, and that on 12.7.2018, one Mehulbhai Bhanuprasad Raval working as Technical Programmer in the RTO, Gandhinagar had misused the User Names and Passwords of the employees and received an OTP on his mobile phone, in collusion with one agent Sadiq Hussein alias Ibrahim Malik.
4. The Court, after having perused the papers of Page 2 of 10 Downloaded on : Sun Feb 21 23:54:03 IST 2021 R/CR.MA/8363/2020 ORDER the chargesheet produced by the learned Advocate for the applicant, required further clarification on the issue involved, and therefore, had directed the Investigating Officer to file an additional affidavit in respect of the status of the present applicant, as also the procedure being followed for the registration of the vehicles. Accordingly, the I.O., Mr.Sindhav Jitendrasinh H., has tendered the additional affidavit through the learned APP Ms.Moxa Thakkar along with the documents annexed thereto. The same was also taken into consideration for the purpose of deciding the present application.
5. Learned Sr. Advocate Mr. I. H. Syed appearing with the learned Advocate Mr.P. P. Majmudar for the applicant made the following submissions: [a] The allegations made in the complaint against the present applicant do not satisfy the ingredients of the alleged offences. There is hardly any evidence to connect the present applicant with the alleged crime in the papers of chargesheet also.
[b] There are only two tax receipts out of 20 receipts alleged found to be false in respect of 20 vehicles have been produced along with the papers of the chargesheet, and the barcode on the tax receipts produced with the chargesheet are different from the tax receipts available online. The online receipts' barcode could be scanned and on scanning the same, the details of the payment of tax are revealed, whereas the Page 3 of 10 Downloaded on : Sun Feb 21 23:54:03 IST 2021 R/CR.MA/8363/2020 ORDER barcode shown on the receipts produced along with the chargesheet could not be scanned.
[c] The other allegedly false tax receipts have been deliberately suppressed by the I.O., and not produced along with the chargesheet only with a view to save the skin of the officers of the RTO, who were responsible for the verification of the tax receipts and registration of the vehicles.
[d] The registered owners of the offending vehicles whose registrations were cancelled by the RTO had preferred the petitions before this Court, during the pendency of which the RTO had withdrawn the order of cancellation of the registrations, as a result thereof the said petitions came to be disposed of.
[e] The coaccused Chirag Patel had preferred a petition seeking quashing of the proceedings under section 482 of Cr.P.C, in which the coordinate Bench has protected him by directing the I.O. not to take any coercive steps against him.
[f] There is no specific role attributed against the applicant in the FIR as well as in the papers of chargesheet as regards the alleged charges of misappropriation of the amount of the vehicle tax.
[g] The only allegation against the applicant is that one OTP was received on his cell phone Page 4 of 10 Downloaded on : Sun Feb 21 23:54:03 IST 2021 R/CR.MA/8363/2020 ORDER on 12.07.2019, however, mere receiving the OTP would not be sufficient to complete the process of registration or tax collection, which process was being done by the regular employees of the RTO.
[h] There was delay on the part of the complainant to lodge the complaint.
[I] There was no recovery or discovery of any muddamal article made from the applicant.
6. The learned APP Ms. Moxa Thakkar placing heavy reliance on the additional affidavit filed by the I.O. as well as on the basis of chargesheet papers made following submissions :
[a] The applicant had misused his technical knowledge by making false data entries and showing the vehicle tax paid though not paid by the concerned owner of the vehicle and thereby had misappropriated the amount.
[b] For the vehicle No. GJ18BJ2540, the application for registration was inwarded on 06.07.2018 with a data entry starting with the owner code "Government undertaking", in respect of which there was a tax exemption applicable.
On 12.07.2018, the said owner code was changed from "government undertaking" to "individual". After the approval of new registration transaction on 12.07.2018, two backlog fake tax Page 5 of 10 Downloaded on : Sun Feb 21 23:54:03 IST 2021 R/CR.MA/8363/2020 ORDER detail entry was done on behalf of the receipt GJ18R18070006479 by the user Hembha T. Vaghela on the said date at about 14:57 hours.
[c] The applicant working as Technical Programmer on the contract basis appointed by the Silver Touch Company in the RTO, Gandhinagar, was providing technical assistance and therefore was knowing the user names and passwords of all the employees for starting the computer and working on the software "Vahan" Portal. The OTP would be received on the registered mobile number immediately on the login of the said software and the OTP would also be received on the account of the RTO. It was found during the course of investigation that the applicant had logged on the user name of the employee Shri K.D. Desai working as Senior Clerk and had received the OTP on his mobile number 7096060763.
[d] The applicant misusing his technical knowledge had smartly entered the data of the said vehicle in question using the code of "government vehicle" on which no tax would be payable and thereafter changing to code of "Individual".
[e] The tax receipt would show that the vehicle was registered in the year 2019 against the data entry showing that the amount of tax was paid in the year 2017, which was just not possible. It was also found that the password was reset by Page 6 of 10 Downloaded on : Sun Feb 21 23:54:03 IST 2021 R/CR.MA/8363/2020 ORDER the applicant by manipulating the user I/D and password and then the OTP was received on his mobile phone.
[f] The alleged entries were made during the odd hours in the early morning or after working hours of office. The statement of one of the employees Aniruddh Singh Jhala giving details of the entries was also relaid upon.
[g} It was true that the cancellation of the registration order was withdrawn, however, the same was withdrawn on the ground that no proceedings under the proper section were initiated, and in any case, after initiating the proper section, the actions have been taken against the concerned vehicle owners by issuing then the notices.
7. Having heard the learned advocates for the parties at length and perusing the documents on record, it appears that the papers of chargesheet contained only two tax receipts allegedly forged out of 20 tax receipts in respect of 20 vehicles in question. It further appears from the affidavit of the I.O., and the statements of the witnesses recorded by the I.O., that the involvement of the present applicant is found in respect of one vehicle, inasmuch as he appears to have received the OTP during the course of making data entries in respect of the said vehicle, however, there is hardly any Page 7 of 10 Downloaded on : Sun Feb 21 23:54:03 IST 2021 R/CR.MA/8363/2020 ORDER evidence collected by the I.O. to show as to how by receiving such OTP, the vehicle was registered and amount of tax was misappropriated. As such from the affidavit of the I.O., it transpires that there were many other officers in the hierarchy up to Assistant Regional Transport Officer in the RTO, responsible for verification of the entries which were made in the system existing prior to 01.09.2018 and after the said date, however, no satisfactory explanation has been offered by the I.O. in his affidavit, as to why the alleged entries were not verified more particularly as regards payment of tax before the registration of the said twenty vehicles.
8. Be that as it may, at this juncture, the Court is not expected to deal with the evidence collected by the I.O. in detail. Having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, the Court is of the opinion that the present application deserves to be granted.
9. In view of the above, the applicant - Mehulbhai Bhanuprasad Raval, if not required in any other case, is directed to be released on regular bail in connection with FIR being C.R. No.11216008200112/2020 registered with Gandhinagar Sector7 Police Station, District Gandhinagar on his executing a personal bond of Rs.50,000/ (Rupees fifty thousand only) with one solvent surety of the like amount to the satisfaction of the trial court and subject to the conditions that he shall;
[a] not take undue advantage of liberty or
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R/CR.MA/8363/2020 ORDER
misuse liberty;
[b] not act in a manner injurious to the
interest of the prosecution;
[c] surrender passport, if any, to the
concerned trial court within a week;
[d] not leave Gujarat without prior permission of the concerned trial court;
[e] mark his presence before the concerned Police Station between 1st to 10th day of every English calendar month, between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.;
[f] furnish his mobile number and the present addresses of residence to the Investigating Officer and also to the concerned Court at the time of execution of the bond and shall intimate the change of the residence to the concerned police station and the trial court;
10. The authorities shall adhere to its own Circular relating to COVID19 and, thereafter, will release the applicant only if he is not required in connection with any other offence for the time being.
11. If breach of any of the above conditions is committed, the Sessions Judge concerned will be free to issue warrant or take appropriate action in the matter. Bail bond shall be executed before the trial Court having jurisdiction to try the case.
12. At the trial, the Trial Court shall not be Page 9 of 10 Downloaded on : Sun Feb 21 23:54:03 IST 2021 R/CR.MA/8363/2020 ORDER influenced by the prima facie observations made by this Court in the present order.
13. Rule is made absolute to the aforesaid extent. Direct service is permitted. Registry to communicate this order to the concerned Court/ Jail authority by Fax or Email forthwith.
(BELA M. TRIVEDI, J) MEHUL B. TUVAR/vinod Page 10 of 10 Downloaded on : Sun Feb 21 23:54:03 IST 2021