Delhi District Court
Sandhya Arora vs The State on 7 October, 2015
IN THE COURT OF SH LOKESH KUMAR SHARMA ADDITIONAL SESSIONS
JUDGE04 & SPECIAL JUDGE SOUTH EAST
SAKET COURTS: NEW DELHI
Criminal Revision No. 285 of 2015
ID No. 02406R0215162015
FIR No. 287/1993
U/s. 420/468/471/34 IPC
PS : Lodhi Colony
Sandhya Arora
D/o G R Arora
R/o 50A, PocketA,
Mayur Vihar PhaseII
Delhi110091 .....Petitioner
Versus
The State
NCT of Govt. of Delhi .....Respondent
Instituted on : 09.07 2015
Argued on : 07.10. 2015
Decided on : 07.10.2015
O R D E R
1 Feeling aggrieved from the order on charge dated 19.04.2014 passed by the Court of Sh. Pawan Kumar, Learned Metropolitan Magistrate01, SouthEast District, Saket Courts, New Delhi vide which the Ld. MM was pleased to frame charges for the offences u/s 420 & 471 IPC against the petitioner on 29.04.2014, in case FIR No. 287/1993, PS Lodhi Colony, the petitioner has preferred the present revision petition.
2 Alongwith the present revision petition, an application under section 5 of the Limitation Act has also been filed by the petitioner seeking condonation of delay in filing of the present revision petition.
3 I have heard Sh. Kamaljeet Singh, Ld. Counsel for the petitioner as well as Sh. Anil Kumar, Ld. Addl.PP for the State/Respondent and have also gone Sandhya Arora Vs State - 285 of 2014 1/9 through the record.
4 In view of the explanation given in the application related to the period of delay in preferring the present revision petition that owing to the misplacement of file by the previous Counsel, duly supported by the affidavit of the petitioner that owning to this reason, the petitioner could not prefer the present revision petition on time, the application is allowed and the delay of almost 355 days is hereby condoned as a party cannot be held guilty or punished for any fault of the Counsel.
5 The impugned order has been assailed on the following amongst other grounds :
Because Ld. MM had failed to appreciate that the essential ingredients of Section 420 & 471 IPC were missing in this case and there was neither any inducement nor any immovable property was delivered by the College to the petitioner and the impugned order had been passed in a mechanical manner without even application of judicial mind and role qua the petitioner was based on assumptions and surmises only that she was the beneficiary of the alleged transaction and no material in that regard had ever existed on record.
It was further contented that there was no documentary evidence against the petitioner to show that the petitioner had induced the college to give her admission in any manner whatsoever and the Ld. MM had failed to appreciate the evidence on record in the form of statement of professor of Dayal Singh College during precharge evidence, where it had come on record that the admission forms were being put up before the concerned authority only by the College Staff and not Sandhya Arora Vs State - 285 of 2014 2/9 by the student herself. It was also stated that Ld. MM had failed to appreciate the mandate of the Hon'ble Apex Court passed in "Dilwar Balu Kurane Vs. State of Maharashtra, reported as (2002) 2 SCC 135", wherein, it was stated that the person is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty and the benefit of doubt must go to the accused even at the stage of framing charge and further submitted that the Court should not merely act as a post office and mouth piece of prosecution and has to consider the broad probabilities of the case. Thus, the impugned order has caused grave miscarriage of justice to the petitioner.
6 Brief facts that had given rise to filing of the present revision petition are succinctly given as under: Sh. B. M. Bhalla, Principal of Dayal Singh College had made a written complaint dated 09.11.1993 to SHO, PS Lodhi Colony alleging interalia that three students, namely, Kapil Dev Mishra, Raja Vishal Oberoi and Rishi Seth had tried to get admission/migration to the said college on the basis of the forged signatures of one Sh. Rajeshwar Gupta, Reader in commerce Division, Sh. S. K. Wason, Coordinator Admission Committee and signature of the complainant on the admission form and other documents. Thereafter, another complaint dated 22.11.1993 was received by the SHO against five more students, including the present petitioner regarding getting admissions on the basis of forged documents.
During investigation, the relevant papers i.e. admission form etc. were seized and the specimen signatures of the authorized persons and the accused persons were obtained for seeking opinion from handwriting expert.
As per the report of the handwriting expert, signatures of the Sandhya Arora Vs State - 285 of 2014 3/9 concerned college authorities on the questioned documents were found to be forged and were not signed by them, but no opinion could be expressed that the questioned signatures were being put upon those documents by the accused persons. 7 Ld. Counsel appearing for the petitioner had also drawn the attention of this Court towards the order dated 19.07.2013, where by Learned Trial Court had observed that the most important aspect related to the procedure of admission was not the part of investigation and no investigation in that regard was carried out, hence, notice to Principal Dayal Singh College was issued to depute the admission coordinator or any other concerned authority to explain the procedure of admission/ migration and submission of the admission form etc. 8 Thereafter, Dr. Sunil Kumar, Associate Professor, Dayal Singh College was examined, who had stated that as per general procedure of the admission, the different committees were formed consisting of one coordinator and three/four members and the firstly merit list was prepared for admission in different streams and aspirants thereafter approached committee with admission forms and relevant documents and submit the same to the committee. Then committee used to scrutinize the documents and place them before the coordinator through college staff/peon. Then, the coordinator after checking the form and signing the same used to put up the same before the Principal of the college. The Principal was stated to be the final signing authority on the admission form and after his signatures, the forms were forwarded to cashier for deposition of fees and admission procedure stood concluded after fees deposition.
9 To a specific question put to the witness as to whether the students had Sandhya Arora Vs State - 285 of 2014 4/9 any access or control over the forms after their submission to the committee, Dr. Sunil Kumar had categorically denied the same and had stated that forms were put up before the concerned authority by the college staff and not by the students. On asking, he had further stated that in case of migration, HOD/faculty of the concerned department of the college in which the migration was sought would have specified as to whether the seats were vacant or not, then only the concerned college of the student would have given a no objection to the migration. 10 On the other hand, Sh. Anil Kumar, Learned Addl. PP for the State has submitted that as per the Expert's opinion, signatures on the application forms were not of Sh. S. K. Wason, Coordinator, Admission Committee and Sh B N Bhalla, Principal of the college and the petitioner being the beneficiary would be presumed to be guilty because no stranger would do that and even if the petitioner had not done it, it was incumbent upon her to explain as to who else had committed the offence or assisted her in getting the admission on the basis of forged signatures. 11 The allegations against the petitioner herein are that during the sessions 199293, she had got admission in B. Com. (Pass) First Year on the basis of forged admission form after forging the signature of the principal and other members of the admission committee of Dayal Singh College (Day). 12 However, perusal of Trial Court Record reveals that Dr. Sunil Kumar, Associate Professor during preliminary inquiry related to some clarifications sought from him before framing the charge on 03.08.2013 had clearly stated that the students had no access to or control over the forms after their submission to the committee. He had further clarified that the Student could not have directly Sandhya Arora Vs State - 285 of 2014 5/9 submitted the signed admission form before the Cash Clerk and after signatures of the principal, the admission form of a student was forwarded to the cashier for deposition of fee and admission procedure stood concluded after the fee was deposited.
13 Further even during the trial before the Ld. MM, in his testimony recorded on 23.07.2014, PW2 Sh. B. M. Bhalla, the complainant in his cross examination conducted by the Ld. APP for the State had also stated that he was unable to say as to whether the signatures appearing on the admission form of the present petitioner including those of others were in fact his signature or not. In other words, he had not disputed his signatures appearing on the admission form of the petitioner herein in express and unambiguous terms. In his cross examination, conducted on behalf of the petitioner herein, PW2 had further stated that he had not scrutinized the documents as the same were scrutinized by the admission committee and during the course of admission process, he was informed about the forged signatures on the admission form. Once, PW2 had not specifically disputed his signatures on the admission form of the petitioner herein, the same could not be presumed to be forged by anybody. PW2 had further stated that he had also not personally verified the eligibility of the students for the admission in the college. It was also stated by him that the admission forms were deposited in the office of the college and thereafter, the same were carried by the college staff to various committees formed for the purpose of admission process and after approval by the concerned committee, the admission forms were carried to the principal office by the college staff.
Sandhya Arora Vs State - 285 of 2014 6/9 14 From the aforesaid testimony of PW2, coupled with the statement Dr. Sunil Kumar, Associate Professor, Dayal Singh College, it had come on record that the admission form once submitted by a student, never went back in the hands of the student till the admission process was complete and hence, in the background of this process, it cannot be presumed that the petitioner had any opportunity to lay her hands on the admission form after submitting the same before the college authority to forge the signatures of any of the authorities involved in the admission process including the principal, who was the final authority in respect of the admission process.
15 Perusal of the report of the handwriting expert reveals that the signature of the concerned college authorities on the questioned documents were found to be forged and were not signed by them, but no opinion had been expressed by the expert to the effect that the questioned signatures (forged signatures) on the admission form were put by the petitioner herein. Hence, there was not even an iota of evidence on record to suggest that the petitioner had forged the signatures of concerned authorities on her admission form. In the absence of any such evidence, the prosecution version could not have been accepted as a gospel truth. 16 In "Ashok Kumar Nayyar Vs. State", it was observed that the basic time tested norm is that the Court has to form a reasonable opinion about existence of grave suspicion, regarding commission of the offence. If two versions were possible, then the one supporting the accused had to be preferred. Essential ingredient to attract an offence punishable under Section 420 IPC is that there has to be a dishonest intention to deceive another person to deliver any property to any person, Sandhya Arora Vs State - 285 of 2014 7/9 or to consent for its retention by the other or intentionally induces the person so deceived to do or omit to do anything which he would not do or omit if he was not so deceived. For cheating, fraudulent or dishonest intention has to be shown right from the beginning of the transaction. In order to gather dishonest intention, not only the allegations in the complaint but also the entire transaction and the documents relied upon by the prosecution on record have to be gone into. 17 To attract Section 471 IPC, it has to be shown firstly, that revisionist had used forged document as genuine, fraudulently and dishonestly and thereafter, secondly it was shown that she had knowledge or had reasons to believe the same to be forged documents.
18 There is not even an iota of incriminating evidence on record to show that petitioner herein had used any forged document as genuine. Application form was found to be genuine and indisputably, there was nothing on record indicating any manipulation or any forgery therein at the time when it was submitted to the concerned authority for seeking admission by the petitioner. When the petitioner could not have any control over the application form after its submission then, by no stretch of imagination it can be safely observed that the petitioner had in any way, used or had fabricated the signatures of the concerned authorities as it had emerged on record in the form of the statements of Sh. Sunil Kumar and Sh. B. M. Bhalla that a student seeking admission in their college had no access to the documents once submitted by him/her for said purpose and the relevant admission form was being handled by the college staff/peon during the entire process of admission till submission of the form with cashier for payment.
Sandhya Arora Vs State - 285 of 2014 8/9 19 Perusal of the trial Court record reveals that there was no piece of evidence on record to prima facie show that the petitioner had induced any person or had fraudulently or dishonestly induced any person to deliver any property or there was any dishonest intention of any fact or forgery on the part of the petitioner. Further more, nothing had emerged on record to show prima facie that the petitioner had entered into any conspiracy with any staff of the college or official to forge such signatures in order to seek her admission in the said college. 20 Hence, prima facie there was no evidence to connect the petitioner with the commission of the offence u/s 471 & 420 IPC and the impugned order as passed by the Ld.MM suffers from serious infirmities and irregularities. 21 In view of the foregoing discussion, the revision petition is allowed and the impugned order is set aside and the petitioner is discharged from the allegations of offence u/s 420 & 471 IPC. Petitioner is directed to furnish her bail bond in terms of Section 437A Cr.PC in sum of Rs.25,000/.
22 TCR be sent back with a copy of the order.
23 Revision petition be consigned to record room after compliance of all other necessary formalities in this regard.
Announced in the
open court on (LOKESH KUMAR SHARMA)
07th October, 2015 Additional Sessions Judge04 & Spl. Judge (NDPS)
South East, New Delhi
Sandhya Arora Vs State - 285 of 2014 9/9