The Delhi High Court while dismissing a petition alleging mala fide intention on the complainant noted that whether the litigations are true or untrue would have to be decided in the trial and under section 482 CrPC, the court does not examine the correctness of allegations in the complaint except in exceptionally rare cases where it is patently clear that the allegations are frivolous or do not disclose any offence.
Brief Facts:
The Current petition challenges the order of the learned Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, New Delhi, wherein the SHO was directed to register the FIR under the appropriate sections of the law on the complaint filed by respondent no. 2.
The case of the complainant is that the petitioner was working last as deputy manager from which position, he resigned in 2019. In the course of employment, he was entrusted with the records of the company’s customers and their aircraft and other information that was confidential in nature and was stored in the official computer system allotted to the petitioner. It has been alleged that the petitioner has unauthorizedly copied the confidential data into his personal hard disk and the same was returned by him to the representative of the company.
Contentions of the Petitioner:
The petitioner contends that the application filed under section 156(3) of the CrPC has not made averment of the steps taken under section 154 of the CrPC and specifically section 154(3). Based on the judgment of Priyanka Srivastava and Another v. State of Uttar Pradesh and others (2015) it was submitted that the application filed under section 156(3) was not maintainable and was liable to be dismissed. It was also submitted that the complaint has been filed with mala fide intent as the petitioner was demanding overdue salary after the resignation. The petitioner also submitted that Respondent No. 2 had threatened the petitioner of implicating him in a false case. It was also submitted that copying on the hard disk is a general practice adopted by all the employees.
Contentions of the Respondent:
The Respondent had submitted that they had filed a complaint under section 200 of the CrPC along with Section 156(3) of the CrPC and before that a written complaint was filled with the cyber cell, it is when no action was taken that the subsequent complaint was filed and it was accordingly contended that this meets the requirement of section 156(3) CrPC. For the contention of mala fide, the respondent contended that it was a matter of investigation and that could not be pre-judged at this stage.
The Court noted that the complaint was filed under section 200 along with an application under section 156(3) of the CrPC, and then they referred to the Priyanka Srivastava Case and it was then concluded that by making a complaint at the cyber cell, DCP cyber cell ACP Cyber Cell, and also to the Commissioner of Police, the respondent has met the requirement of section 156(3) CrPC laid down in the previous judgment. With regards to the contention of mala fide intention, the court noted that the said pleas are highly premature. Then the court referred to the case of Ramveer Upadhyay and another v. State of UP and another as well as the case of Directorate of Enforcement v. Niraj Tyagi & Ors., the court concluded that there were no grounds to interfere with the merits of the FIR as has been contented by the petitioner.
The decision of the Court:
The Delhi High Court did not find any merit in the petition and the same was dismissed.
Case Title: Senthil Velkumar v. State Through SHO & Anr.
Coram: Hon’ble Justice Navin Chawla
Case No.: CRL.M.C. 141/2022
Advocate for the Appellant: Mr. S. Muthu Krishnan, Adv.
Advocate for the Respondents: Mr.Aman Usman, APP. And Mr.Dinesh Kumar, Ms.Preeti
Thakur, Mr.Abhishek Maroria, Adv. for R-2.
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