The Excessive Court docket of Karnataka has held that each a civil swimsuit and a felony criticism are maintainable in a case the place solid paperwork had been allegedly used to switch the property of a temple.
Y N Sreenivasa and his spouse Suraksha had approached the HC difficult a felony criticism filed towards them by Latha Manjari and her son Y A Chetan Kumar.
It was claimed within the criticism that the husband of Latha — L N Ashwathama — and Sreenivasa collectively owned one acre 11 guntas land (40 guntas make one acre).
The Bangalore Growth Authority (BDA) acquired this land leaving out 14 guntas.
A temple was constructed on this land which was managed by Ashwathama and Sreenivasa. Ashwathama died on October 30, 2010.
It’s alleged that in 2018, Sreenivasa executed a present deed of a portion of this land within the title of his spouse Suraksha and one other portion within the title of his son.
Later, an absolute sale deed was executed by the Belief represented by the husband and spouse in favour of their son on March 31, 2018. Allegedly fabricated ‘khatha’ certificates, fabricated tax-paid certificates had been used to register this deed.
A felony criticism was filed beneath Sections 419, 420, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) within the Sanjay Nagar police station. These are associated to dishonest, dishonest by personation, forgery and utilizing solid paperwork.
Within the HC, Sreenivasa and Suraksha contended {that a} civil swimsuit over the identical subject was pending earlier than a civil courtroom and subsequently a felony case on the identical floor couldn’t have been initiated.
Nonetheless, Justice Suraj Govindaraj stated in his latest judgement that each had been maintainable.
The petition had additionally challenged the felony criticism on the bottom that because the sub-registrar was the aggrieved social gathering, solely he can file a felony criticism beneath Part 177 of the IPC which offers with fabricated paperwork offered to a civil servant.
The HC nonetheless, identified that solely in respect of Part 177 a criticism must be filed by a civil servant who’s affected. However complaints relating to different sections of the IPC wouldn’t be affected.
“A personal particular person wouldn’t be barred from initiating proceedings beneath Part 419, 420, 468 and 471 of the IPC on account of fabrication having occurred earlier than a sub-registrar, which is a separate offence beneath Part 177 of IPC,” the HC stated.