Sakshi Chhabra
In an aid for the (IHFL) Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd, the Bombay High court has stayed an investigation against the corporate by the Palghar police until the case is heard. The court while stating its order observed that the complaint on which the case was filed “Appeared to be malafide and deficient.”
The case was registered after an organization shareholder Ashutosh Kamble approached the native police station within the Palghar District alleging siphoning of funds and sought the decrease courtroom’s intervention to direct the police to examine the matter.
In his grievance to the Palghar court, Kamble claimed that he suffered devaluation of his stocks because of alleged misleading’s between 2014 and 2020.
He additionally made a number of allegations towards the founder and promoter Sameer Gehlaut and different administrators in reference to misappropriation of price range via the corporate.
Following this, IHFL moved to the High court to challenge the lower court’s order and sough quashing of the FIR against the company.
Senior counsel, Amit Desai who appeared for the NBFC argued that the complaint lodged by Kamble was absolutely malafide and part of similar attempts made earlier against the petitioners by certain persons seeking to initiate criminal proceedings on the basis of false and frivolous allegations, so as to extract money from the petitioners.
IHFL further argued that the respondent did not wait for the matter to proceed further and within four days he approached the higher authority i.e., Superintendent of Police and then immediately on April 3, 2021, filing the complaint before the Magistrate under Section 156(3) of the CrPC on April 7, 2021, and later the magistrate proceeded to pass the order directing registration of FIR.
Division bench of Justice SS Shinde and Justice Manish Pitale in its order observed, “It has been laid down that such requirement has to be satisfied so as to ensure that citizens are protected from perverse litigations and complaints filed before the Magistrates for initiating criminal proceedings only with a view to harass fellow citizens. Therefore, prima facie, we find some substance in the contentions raised in this context on behalf of the petitioners (IHFL).”
The court in its final order of April 27 while granting interim relief to IHFL directed the local police to stay the investigation in the matter until the final disposal of the petition.