The Supreme Court has recently set aside a 2017 judgement of the Gujarat High Court, which quashed an FIR registered by the State Police in 2015 against the fugitive businessman Mehul Chinubhai Choksi and his wife.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and SVN Bhatti asked Gujarat police to go ahead with the investigation.
“Investigation will continue without being influenced by any of the findings or observations made in the impugned judgment or the present order. We also clarify that while conducting the investigation, the Investigating Officer will keep in mind the rulings of this Court and High Courts interpreting Sections 406, 420, 464 and 465 etc of the IPC,” the order stated.
On the complaint of one Digvijaysinh Himmatsing Jadeja, the Gandhinagar police had registered an FIR for the offences of criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy for failing to return 24-carat gold bars in terms of agreements entered into 2013.
The complainant alleged that Choksi’s company failed to return to him gold bars and misappropriated them, violating the terms of the agreement.
The Gujarat High Court on May 5, 2017, had quashed the FIR on the ground that the complaint was mostly a civil breach of contract and no criminal offence was made out.
Reversing the High Court’s order, the apex court said the High Court’s judgement exceeded its jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure by delving deep into the factual controversy.
“Suffice it is to observe that the High Court should not have examined and recorded a conclusion on the disputed fact to quash the FIR. At this stage, we record that under the registration of the FIR, the investigation had proceeded,” the order stated.
It allowed the investigation to continue without being influenced by any of the findings or observations made by the High Court or Supreme Court.
“The observations in this order will not be read as comments or observations on the merits of the case,” the bench stated in order of November 29.
Mehul Choksi, along with his nephew Nirav Modi, is wanted in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, where it is alleged that they defrauded the bank of more than Rs 14,000 crore.
(This news report is published from a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has not been written or edited by OpIndia staff)
