Don’t take coercive steps against elderly women in Sec 2 house case: HC to cops

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has restrained the Chandigarh Police from taking coercive steps against two elderly women in a cheating and forgery case involving a Sector 2 house. The direction came as Justice Harpreet Singh Brar took into consideration, among other things, the submissions that the dispute between the parties, prima facie, was civil in nature.

The petitioners, aged 94 and 65, had moved the High Court through senior advocate DS Patwalia with counsel PS Ahluwalia, Gauravjit S Patwalia, Keerat Dhillon and Lagan K Sidhu for quashing an FIR registered under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC at Economic Offences Wing on May 20.

Rajinder Kaur and the other petitioner contended that the dispute was purely civil but given a criminal colour “with an oblique motive to grab the property that has been a subject of litigation up to the Supreme Court”.

Their counsel argued that the property was originally owned by Shiv Singh and devolved upon his children Sadhu Singh and Bachan Kaur. The petitioners – legal heirs of Sadhu Singh – contended that he paid off the loan on the property. “Since Bachan Kaur, his sister, did not have the means to pay her share, she relinquished her share in the property in his favour.”

The Bench was told that Sadhu Singh died in April 1994 and, subsequently, a civil suit for possession by partition was filed by the heirs of Bachan Kaur, claiming half share in the property. It was dismissed in October 1998. The appeal against the order was dismissed by the Appellate Court in January 2006.

A regular second appeal by the legal heirs of Bachan Kaur through a GPA was dismissed in May 2009. This judgment was challenged, but the matter was disposed of by the Supreme Court in January 2010 with a direction to decide the petitioners’ appeal pending before the UT Additional District Judge.

The petitioners also filed a suit for declaration claiming that they were the property’s absolute owners. It was allowed vide ex-parte judgment dated May 6, 1999. But it was subsequently set aside. Ultimately, the property was mutated to the extent of 50% each share in favour of the petitioners — legal heirs of Sadhu Singh — and the legal heirs of Bachan Kaur.

The counsel further submitted that in 2013, the respondent filed a complaint alleging that Sadhu Singh, in connivance with his wife, prepared a false and fabricated agreement, whereby Bachan Kaur allegedly bequeathed her share to Sadhu Singh.

The complainant also alleged that the agreement was prepared by forging the signatures of Bachan Kaur and one Balwant Singh. It was willfully used by the legal heirs of Sadhu Singh to obtain the ownership of the entire property on the basis of an ex-parte decree. But the UT Judicial Magistrate First Class dismissed the complaint in July 2017 with categorical finding that the dispute already stood settled by the Civil Courts and “nowhere during the civil proceedings it concluded that the document is forged”.

It was added that the trial court also remarked that criminal prosecution could not be allowed to be used as a tool of harassment. A revision petition filed before the UT Additional Sessions Judge was withdrawn in August 2022.

Patwalia added that the complainant in the FIR claimed to have acquired the share of the heirs of Bachan Kaur in the disputed property vide agreement to sell dated August 19, 1997. But his case was that he was unable to register the sale deed due to continued obstructions. He also filed a civil suit currently pending adjudication before a Civil Judge (Senior Division), Chandigarh.

He added that the complainant conveniently suppressed the dismissal of his complaint under Section 156(3) of CrPC “which spells out the same set of allegations”. “The jurisdictional court has already decided upon the specific allegations of forgery while dismissing the complaint. Thus the issue has attained finality. Now with an oblique motive to harass the petitioners, the FIR has been registered merely on the basis of the opinion rendered by a private handwriting expert on January 25, 2004, while the complainant is projecting to have gained the knowledge about the forgery after obtaining the opinion this year under the Right to Information Act.”

Chandigarh