Granting anticipatory bail in a matter pertaining to recovery of money in a dispute between a property owner and its manager, the district and sessions court here on Wednesday remarked that it could not become an instrument in the hands of the police to allow them to act as “recovery agents”. The court also wondered how a First Information Report was registered in a civil dispute.
Pronouncing the order on the bail application by Ram Chandra alias Ramesh Upadhaya, Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Kumar Sharma observed that the contents of the complaint prima facie showed that there was hardly anything necessitating the Commissioner of Police, Gurugram, to send the same to the ACP (East) Gurugram leading to the registration of the FIR. “It appears that there is lack of supervision, superintendence and effective control,” observed the court.
The case pertained to Prem Bhushan Khanna accusing Mr. Upadhyaya, his property manager, of discrepancies in account books and not clearing the dues despite repeated efforts. An FIR was registered on December 12, 2016, in this connection under Sections 406 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code and the arrest warrant of Mr. Upadhyaya was issued on August 24, 2018.
The accused-applicant’s counsel Pawan Bansal argued that the dispute was between the complainant and the company managing his property. He argued that his client was the employee of the company and not the complainant and was falsely implicated. Mr. Bansal said from the entire complaint no criminal act was made out and the dispute, if any, was of civil nature.
Seeking rejection of the bail application, Public Prosecutor Vikarn said that recovery of ₹4.5 lakh was to be effected from the applicant-accused.
Justice Sharma observed that “this court fails to understand as to how an FIR, which is a criminal proceeding, can be registered for the recovery of the money if the same is in respect of some civil dispute”. The judge, in his nine-page order, quoted from the Madhu Khanna versus Union of India and Others case saying “it is not the job of the police to meddle with the civil dispute and the police officers cannot be given licence to meddle with the civil dispute”.
The order also said that the Supreme Court in M/s Indian Oil Corporation Vs. M/s NEPC India Limited and Others had held that “any effort to settle civil disputes and claims, which do not involve any criminal offence, by applying pressure through criminal prosecution should be deprecated and discouraged”.
