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The instant petitions raise issues which are analogues, interconnected and akin to each other, as such, are being taken up for disposal jointly here under.

The brief facts leading to the filling of the instant petition are as follows: -

 Respondents 4 and 5 herein (for short the complainants) are stated to have filed a complaint before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Srinagar, against the petitioners herein for allegations of fraud, cheating, embezzlement and misappropriation of funds of an educational society namely "Tyndale Biscoe and Mallinson Society Kashmir" (for short the Society) and Schools namely "The Kashmir Valley School Budgam" and "Tyndale-Biscoe Mallinson School Shajimarg Tangmarg" (for short the Schools) run by the said Society besides, alleging conversion of assets of the Society and the Schools into their personal assets and also for misappropriating grants provided by the government worth crores of rupees to the Society and the Schools in violation of rules of the Society.

Reply to the petition has been filed by the respondents 2 and 3 as also respondents 4 and 5.

 In the reply filed by respondents 2 and 3 it is being admitted that the complaint came to be received on 14.12.2018 from the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Srinagar whereafter an enquiry bearing No. 214/2018 was initiated wherein most of the allegations were not proved on the face of evidence both orally and documentary mainly provided by school administration run by the petitioners.  It is also being stated that during the pendency of the said enquiry, the complainants submitted a representation/complaint before the respondent 3 and simultaneously before respondent No. 2 whereupon the respondent 2 directed respondent 3 to initiate a preliminary verification resulting into initiation of preliminary verification bearing No. 02/2020 which formal verification with regard to the trustees of the school were found to be in conflict with information received from the Registrar of Societies J&K and the said complaint filed by complainants against the petitioners disclosed offences of fraud, cheating, misappropriation and conspiracy.

It is further contended by Mr Sethi that the allegations of cheating, fraud and misappropriation leveled against the petitioners besides being false, unfounded and baseless are otherwise not attracted against the petitioners as the complainants do not claim to be the persons either cheated or defrauded warranting application of relevant provisions of the Penal Code.

Mr. Sethi would lastly contend that the complainants have been continuously subjecting the petitioners to harassment, blackmailing and persecution by filing false, baseless and unfounded successive complaints on same set of allegations, without any lawful justification, but for extraneous considerations coupled with oblique motives.

Section 18 of the Act provides that any property or assets owned, hold or acquired by any person in or on behalf of any private school shall for the purposes of this Act be deemed to be property of the educational agency notwithstanding that such property stands in the name of any individual.

Besides above, it would also be pertinent and appropriate to refer to the sum and substance of the allegations leveled by the complainants against the petitioners in the complaints filed by them before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Srinagar, and other official respondents herein. The allegations admittedly are of fraud, cheating and misappropriation of the funds of the Society and the Schools, besides to breach of trust. Indisputably neither the Society nor the Schools are the complainants alleging the said acts of omission and commission against the petitioners in relation to their affairs, funds or properties. The complainants thus, cannot by any sense of imagination said to be the persons aggrieved of or persons having suffered on account of alleged offences at the hands of the petitioners, be it the offence of fraud, cheating or misappropriation of the funds of the Society or the Schools, more so in presence of the stand of the petitioners that the properties purchased by them in their own names in fact are the properties belonging to the Society and the Schools, which stand of the petitioners also lends support from the language used in Section 18 of the Act of 2002 supra.