Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 3: High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has refused to quash FIR, which was registered against education consultancy for duping a man.
As per the FIR, the complainant/respondent approached the Crime Branch Kashmir with an application alleging therein that he had approached Fayaz International Education Consultancy, of which the petitioner Fayaz Ahmed Rather happens to be the proprietor, for arranging MBBS admission of his son at ASCOMS Jammu. It had been further alleged in the complaint that all the relevant documents were handed over to the petitioner and an amount of Rs 36 lakh was paid to him for arranging admission of the son of the complainant.
On the basis of this complaint, the Crime Branch undertook preliminary verification and found that the petitioner has duped the complainant of an amount of Rs 36 lakh on pretext of arranging MBBS admission of his son at ASCOMS Jammu. Thus, offence under Section 420 RPC has been disclosed against the petitioner and the impugned FIR has been registered.
After hearing both the sides, Justice Sanjay Dhar observed, “so far as the contention of the petitioner that the impugned FIR could not have been registered against him because the petitioner is facing prosecution in respect of a complaint filed by the respondents for offence under Section 138 of the NI Act is concerned, the same is without any merit”.
“The transaction which is the subject matter of the impugned FIR and the transaction which is the subject matter of the complaint under Section 138 of the NI Act pending against the petitioner, may be one and the same, but this transaction has given rise to two different offences and the causes of action for launching the prosecution against the petitioner for these two distinct offences are also different”, High Court said.
“The cause of the action for filing the complaint under Section 138 of the NI Act arises once drawer of a cheque fails to liquidate the cheque amount in favour of the payee within 15 days of service of demand notice after the dishonour of the cheque, whereas, the cause of action for offence under Section 420 IPC/RPC arises if it is shown that at the time of inception of transaction the accused was having a dishonest intention, as a consequence whereof he has perpetrated a fraud upon the complainant, thereby inducing him to part with property”, High Court said, adding “thus, the two offences viz the offence under Section 138 of the NI Act and the offence under Section 420 IPC/RPC are distinct from each other and they arise from different causes of action”.
“There is no merit in this petition as such the same is dismissed”, the High Court said.
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