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5. Investigation by the Police had revealed that the sim tray of the phone of the complainant was tampered with and changed with that of another i-phone which was no longer covered by warranty. It is alleged by the Petitioners that the complainant/Respondent No. 2 has embarked on a vengeful journey in order to falsely implicate the Petitioners herein only on account of them being associated at various levels and capacities with Redington. The learned Counsel for the Petitioners has drawn my attention to the FIR which is at page 4 of the additional documents which is filed along with I.A.No.11252/2013, which for the reasons stated therein, is allowed and the said documents are taken on record and considered. The learned Senior Counsel for the Petitioners has stated that all those persons who are at the top level, involved with the management of the company have been named as accused persons. With specific reference, he has drawn my attention to those at senior nos. 4 and 5 who are merely mentioned as General Manager of the Corporate Office at Chennai and the General Manager at the Corporate Officer at New Delhi. The learned counsel for the Petitioners has submitted that the very fact that two of the persons said to be arrayed as accuseds are incorporeal, being a post or a position in the company and not as specific individuals, only goes to reveal that the complainant/Respondent No. 2 has taken the names of the Petitioners herein from internet and thereafter inserted their names as accused persons knowing fully well that there existed no specific allegation that could be levelled against them. The only aspersion that the Respondent No.2 has levelled is that the principal accused could not have committed this offence sitting in Lucknow without the connivance and collaboration of the Petitioners herein sitting in Chennai, Lucknow and Delhi.

8. Heard the learned counsel for the Petitioners and the State and perused the documents along with the charge sheet. In the FIR, the complainant has reiterated as aforementioned that he had given his i-phone for repairs firstly to M/s. Freedom World at Lucknow, as he was in Lucknow during the material point of time when the i-phone went dead. It was returned to Respondent No. 2 on 07/02/12 in a working condition. Thereafter, in the month of October 2012, upon the same problem recurring, the Respondent No. 2 approached Tresor Systems at Gurgaon which informed the Respondent No. 2 that the mobile has been replaced at least seven times. He further states in the complaint that upon his return to Bhopal, he checked the status of his phone over the internet and was aghast to learn that the record also revealed that the IMIE number was replaced 7 times. The mobile was allegedly in a non-functional condition on the day he had registered the FIR against the Petitioners. The Petitioners, upon coming to know about the case filed against them, approached this Court in the year 2013 which vide order dated 13/05/13 stayed the further proceedings/investigation in the FIR registered against the Petitioners. The said order was made absolute vide order of this Court dated 08/07/15, by which this petition was admitted for final hearing. However, as the stay operated only against the Petitioners herein, the Police investigated the case as against other persons and in the course of the said investigation arrested several other co-accused persons and recorded their disclosure statements under section 27 of the Evidence Act.

16. Section 179 relates to the jurisdiction of a Court to try an offence on account of an act done or where its consequence ensues. This section relates to any act which is an offence on account of the consequences which ensues out of such an act. In such cases, the Court within whose jurisdiction such an act was done or the Court within whose jurisdiction the consequence of such an act ensues, are legally vested with the authority to try the offence. The other sections in this chapter not being directly relevant for a decision in this case, are not being adverted to. The Ld. Counsel for the State has largely tried to bring in the jurisdiction of the criminal Court in Madhya Pradesh with the aid of section 178 and 179 Cr.P.C. She has argued that (a) the offence was spread of three states, being Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and (b) that though the offence may have been committed in Uttar Pradesh, the effect of the said offence ensued in Madhya Pradesh and so the Court at Bhopal has the territorial jurisdiction to try the offence. This Court is unable to agree with the said contention. As regards the offence itself, the same involved the act of changing the sim tray of the Respondent No.2’s IPhone, and that took place in Lucknow in the State of Uttar Pradesh. No part of the offence took place in the State of Haryana as the only event that took place there was that the phone stopped working for a second time when the Respondent No.2 was in Gurgaon and he was later informed by Tresor Systems at Gurgaon where he was informed about the phone being changed seven times under warranty. As regards Madhya Pradesh, the only instance on account of which the Ld. Counsel for the State submitted that the courts here have jurisdiction to try the offence is based on the statement of the Complainant that after returning to Bhopal, he checked over the internet from the official site of Apple and came to know that the information given by Tresor Systems at Gurgaon was true. As regards the jurisdiction of the Courts at Lucknow and Gurgaon are concerned, the same are made out as in Lucknow, the offence was committed by replacing the sim tray of defective IPhone with that of the Respondent No.2’s. The jurisdiction of Gurgaon is also made out as the effect of changing the sim tray at Lucknow ensued at Gurgaon when the Respondent No.2’s IPhone stopped working again. However, the stand of the Ld. Counsel for the State that the jurisdiction of Bhopal is also carved out as the Complainant came to know about the commission of the offence after returning to Bhopal and checking up on the internet is misplaced. Merely coming to know about the offence does not give the court where the knowledge about the said offence was gathered, the jurisdiction to try the offence. When asked specifically by the Court as to what part of the transaction relating to the offence took place in Madhya Pradesh, the Ld. Counsel for the State could not give a satisfactory reply and was unable to spell out as to which part of the transaction relating to the offence was committed in Bhopal.

17. The learned counsel for the Petitioner has vehemently argued that the place where the offence has been committed was Lucknow. It is his contention that the offence was committed on February 2012 when the Petitioner gave his i-phone for repairs to M/s Freedom World, Lucknow, when the sim tray of the phone was changed. The learned counsel for the Petitioners states that the period of the offence could be deemed to have been between February 2012 when the offence had been committed and 7.12.2012 when the Complainant’s phone stopped working a second time on account of the replacement of the sim tray of the phone in February 2012 at Lucknow, which was the ensuing effect of the offending act committed in February 2012. He has argued that the date on which the discovery of the offence was effected cannot be taken to be date when the offence was committed. Learned counsel for the respondent/State has argued that if one looks at chain of events, then the Apple i-phone was purchased at Bhopal which is undisputed and that the same was first given for repairs in Lucknow where the alleged offence is stated to have taken place, which again is undisputed and thereafter she says that the discovery of the offence was almost 8 months after in October 2012 when the phone went dead again and the Respondent No. 2 took to same for repairs to Treasors Systems at Gurgaon where it came to his knowledge that the phone has been replaced at least 7 times and that was the place where he came to know about the offence. Learned counsel for the respondent State has further stated that after coming to Bhopal, the Respondent No. 2, through the internet checked out the status of his i-phone which once again revealed that the same had been replaced 7 times. Therefore, on the basis of the chain and sequence of events, the learned counsel for the State has indicated that the Madhya Pradesh Police gets jurisdiction to register the said offence and that the Court at Bhopal gets the jurisdiction to try the offence as; A) the mobile was purchased in Bhopal and thereafter over the internet the Respondent No. 2 came to know again that the mobile has been replaced 7 times. Another argument that has been put forward by the learned counsel for the State in order to show that the court at Bhopal has the jurisdiction to try the said offence is the inclusion of an offence under the Information Technology Act. She has argued that an offence under the Information Technology Act is an offence without borders and territories and by way of computers can be committed from anywhere. In order to buttress her claim she has stated that the Respondent No. 2 finally came to know about the cheating committed on him when he accessed the site of the company through the internet and received the information about the replacement relating the i-phone, which was done from Bhopal.