Read Time: 06 minutes

Synopsis

In Mumbai, everyone is in ardent need of permanent ownership residence and people gain confidence and cheat the needy. Hard earned life earnings go waste and such needy people never get any house or even a refund of their money. On the contrary, cheaters get easy money by such offences, observed a Sessions Court. 

Addl Sessions Judge Gr. Bombay, M. G. Deshpande, was considering an application under Section 438 of Cr.PC for grant of anticipatory bail. 

An FIR was lodged with Dadar Police Station under Section 420 (cheating), 406(criminal breach of trust), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 34 (common intention) of IPC, 1860. It was alleged that the main accused Sunil Ghatvisave has cheated the informant and 21 others by giving fake promises for making available homes in Century Mill Kamgar MHADA (Mumbai Housing Area and Development Authority) Vasahat. 

The informant came in contact with the main accused with information that he has acquaintance in MHADA and can manage houses of Mill Workers for a reasonable price. The accused was paid Rs. 19 lakhs through cheques and during 2017 to 2018, the informant paid him another amount of Rs. 12 lakhs.

Similarly, an acquaintance of the informant had also paid the accused for himself and five to six other people for homes. The accused then transferred those moneys into various other accounts.

In the bank account of the applicant, an amount of Rs. 14 lakhs was diverted by the main accused. Similarly, huge amounts collected from various affected people were transferred in the bank accounts of other accused persons.   

Addl PP Rashmi Tendulkar prayed for rejection of application saying that it is yet to be investigated as to why huge transfers were made in the bank account of the wife of the main accused and others. On the other hand, Advocate Rahul S. Arote appeared for applicants seeking pre-arrest bail.

The court said that all these transfers “clearly indicates that the applicant had syphoned of money which he has collected from the informant and his friends who were in ardent need of an ownership house at a reasonable price in Prabhadevi area.”

Receiving amounts by the applicants in their bank accounts prima-facie reflects that all of them have concrete knowledge the purpose for which money has been transferred in their accounts. Therefore, it is a clear case of cheating and fetching hard earned life earnings of people like informant and his friends, it added further. 

“Allegations in the FIR clearly indicate how all the persons referred therein right from the beginning with dishonest intention to cheat the informant, gained his confidence, impersonated them as MHADA high level officers and fetched huge money from him with a false, fake promise of arranging a MHADA house for him when they themselves were clearly knowing that they could not arrange such MHADA house,” the court noted. 

“Fetching money as such to cheat the informant, prima- facie indicates their dishonest intention to cheat the informant right from the beginning, which is the basic qualification to attract Sec. 420 IPC,” it said while rejecting the application for anticipatory bail. 

Cause Title- Sujata Sunil Ghatvisave & Ors. v. State of Maharashtra