Mukhtar Ansari’s sister-in-law and MP Afzal’s wife Farhat Ansari did not get relief from the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court in a case of forgery in the purchase of land.
The Court has permitted Farhat Ansari to move an application for discharge within the ambit of provisions of law in Code of Criminal Procedure before the trial court concerned within a period of 10 days and if such an application is moved, the same shall be decided within a further period of 45 days by the concerned trial court, strictly in accordance with law.
A single-judge bench of Justice Shree Prakash Singh passed this order while hearing an application under Section 482 filed by Farhat Ansari.
The application had prayed for quashing entire proceedings of the Criminal Case under Sections 120-B, 420, 447, 448, 427, 467, 468 and 471 of IPC and Section 3 Prevention of Damage of Public Property Act, including charge sheet dated 17.09.2021 and summoning order dated 05.10.2021, pending before the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Lucknow.
HGS Parihar, the Senior Counsel for the applicant submitted that, in fact, the applicant is not involved in committing the offence and has falsely been implicated.
He added that the plot is not state land or evacuee property. He added that GS Sharma was the custodian of the said property and thereafter it was transferred to Bal Krishna Sharma and later on it was transferred to the applicant, then it was again transferred to Arvind Kumar Sharma and thereafter the said property was purchased by the applicant.
He added that the matter pertains to a civil dispute and no fraud or cheating has ever been committed by the applicant.
In support of his contention, he also drew attention to the statements as well as purcha of the case diary and submitted that the same demonstrates that there is no criminal intent of the applicant so as to commit the offence as has been alleged in the FIR. He added that it is a civil dispute which is being given the colour of criminality and the present applicant is being harassed for no fault of hers.
On the other hand, V.K Shahi, Additional Advocate General appearing for the State, submitted that, in fact, there is no abuse of process of law or any illegality in the chargesheet as well as in the summoning order.
In support of his contention, he submitted that only the factual dispute has been raised before this Court and that could not be gone into at this stage while invoking jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC.
He further contended that initially the custodian was one GS Mathur and thereafter it was transferred to Bal Krishana Sharma and when it was transferred to Arvind Kumar Sharma, it has been mentioned in the deed itself that some part of the property has been acquired by the government under the provisions of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976. He added that, in fact, the factual matrix has been raised before this Court and thus, the application is liable to be dismissed.
HGS Parihar, Senior Counsel appearing for the applicant, after the argument at length, submitted that the interest of justice would be sub-served, if the Court may be pleased to permit the applicant to move discharge application before the trial court concerned and the same may be decided within stipulated period of time, as may be fixed by the Court.
The counsel for the state had no objection to the contentions aforesaid and he stated that it is the statutory right of the applicant to move an application before the trial court concerned. With the aforesaid observations, the Court disposed of the application.