Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 1: State High Court has held that J&K Crime Branch has sufficient powers and jurisdiction to carry out preliminary verification in those cases whose ramification extends to different States.
These vital observations were made by Justice Alok Aradhe in a petition titled Kamal Gupta Versus State and Others.
The case before the High Court was that a written complaint was lodged by Managing Director K C Hyundai, By-Pass Road Jammu to the Crime Branch mentioning that Kamal Gupta during the course of employment as Manager Accounts had committed fraud and misappropriated huge amount to the tune of Rs 2.13 crore in M/s K C Jammu Automat Pvt Ltd.
On the receipt of complaint, Crime Branch started enquiry and notice under Section 160 of CrPC was sent to the petitioner as well as Rohit Patel, son of R K Patel of Ludhiana. However, they didn’t report in the Crime Branch Jammu.
In the meanwhile, petitioner approached the High Court seeking quashing of preliminary verification being carried out by the Crime Branch Jammu against having jurisdiction.
After hearing Senior Additional Advocate General Wasim Sadiq Nargal along with Government Advocate Sanchit Verma for the Crime Branch, Advocate Paras Gupta for the respondents and Advocate Ruppak Ratta for the petitioner, Justice Aradhe observed, “from the perusal of the statement of facts it is evident that the enquiry is in progress and the petition appears to have been filed to forestall the progress of the investigation”.
“So far as the contention of the petitioner that the respondents have no authority to carry out the investigation in view of SRO 202 dated September 3, 1999, the same enables the respondents to investigate the cases of fraud, theft or cheating of a peculiar nature which affect more than one district and important conspiracy cases whose ramifications extends to several districts and States”, High Court said, adding “in the instant case, prima facie the case appears to be of conspiracy with ramifications which extend to several districts as well as fraud and theft therefore the respondents are well within their rights to carry out investigation”.
Accordingly, the writ petition was dismissed.
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