Chandigarh court finds prima facie case against all accused

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 19

A local court has found a prima facie case against all accused in a six-year-old alleged forgery case related to a house in Sector 9 Chandigarh. The case was filed by a city resident, Deepa Duggal, in 2015 against five persons, alleging that they had forged her signature to take a bank loan to buy her property.

The chargesheet was filed in November 24, 2020, after the CBI Court had rejected the closure report in this case in 2018 and directed the agency to further investigate.

In the order, Inderjeet Singh, Special Judicial Magistrate, CBI, Chandigarh, says that a prima facie case is made out against all accused for commission of offence punishable under Sections 120-B, 420, 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC . The court has also directed all accused to be present in the court on August 31 through their respective advocates for the framing of the charges.

Harmit Singh Chawla, Jagjit Kaur Chawla and two other accused, Gurcharan Singh and Sarabjeet Singh, have been named by the CBI in the charge sheet. The court says that the CBI has filed a detailed chargesheet, therefore hearing arguments of counsel for the accused on the point of framing charges is not at all necessary.

The court says that the careful analysis of the challan reflects that the controversy pertains to the sale of a house in Sector 9-D, Chandigarh. An agreement to sell dated January 28, 2006 was executed between Deepa Duggal (complainant) and Chawla family (comprising Late Gurkirpal Singh Chawla, accused Jagjeet Kaur Chawla, Harmeet Singh Chawla) but the Chawla family failed to arrange the amount for completion of the registration of sale deed, even up to extended date i.e. April 12, 2006.

The Chawla family applied for a home loan in the first week of April 2006 with PNB, Sector 17 branch.

As per the challan, Deepa Duggal received earnest money of Rs65 lakh. Therefore, compelled by the circumstances, all accused persons in conspiracy with each other allegedly forged authority letters of advocates of the bank for the purpose of site inspection of the said house. These authority letters are also available on the home loan file of the accused. They also allegedly forged the memorandum of family settlement dated April 22, 2006, agreement to sale dated July 28, 2005, and affidavit of Phul Duggal (mother in law of the complainant) dated March 27, 2006.

During investigation, Phul Duggal specifically denied her signature over the agreement to sale, memorandum of family settlement. Other relatives, on the side of the complainant, also denied the signature of Phul Duggal on these documents. Further, the forensic science report is also available on record which clearly indicates the forgery committed by the accused persons.

After examining the challan, the Judge in the order says that “at this stage, I am of the considered opinion that a prima facie case is made out against all accused for commission of offence punishable under Sections 120-B, 420, 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC.”

The court has also quoted the judgment of the Supreme Court in Dipakbhai Jagdishchandra Patel Vs. State of Gujarat & Anr which says that “at the time of framing of charges a detailed order is not required and Magistrate is only to see a commission of prime facie offence by the accused persons. All that is required, the court must be satisfied on the basis of the material available on record, a case is made out for the accused to stand trial. A strong suspicion is sufficient.”