Case Law Details
Pratibha Manchanda Vs State of Haryana (Supreme Court of India)
Conclusion: In present case, the Hon’ble Apex Court quashed the anticipatory bail filed under section 438 of the CrPC wherein the details pertaining to PAN Number and TDS were missing for the registration of sale deed and there was no source of transaction of consideration for the purchase of land even when the property in dispute was highly undervalued.
Facts: In present facts of the case, the instant appeal arises from a judgment of the High Court, where anticipatory bail under Section 438 of CrPC was granted to Respondent No. 2. According to the contents of the FIR, the Appellants were owners over the land for over a period of 30 years. The Appellants claim that they never sold the Subject Land to anyone nor have they ever executed any power of attorney (hereinafter, ‘GPA’) in favor of any third party.
On 28.02.2022, Appellant No. 2 went to Patwar Bhawan, Gurugram to obtain revenue papers for the Subject Land. He discovered there only that a person named Bhim Singh Rathi had approached the halqa patwari to sanction mutation of the aforementioned land. The application for mutation was, as per the Appellants, based on a forged and fabricated sale deed bearing vasika No. 11493 dated 24.02.2022 (hereinafter, ‘2022 Sale Deed’). After looking into the matter further, Appellant No. 2 learned that the said sale deed was registered in the office of SubRegistrar Kadipur, District Gurugram and was executed by Respondent No. 2. The execution in question was based on yet another, purportedly, forged and fabricated GPA bearing Vasika No. 13907 dated 18.09.1996, registered in the office of Sub-Registrar-V, South East Delhi. As per the Appellants, they never executed or registered any GPA in favor of Respondent No. 2. Instead, both the 1996 GPA and the 2022 Sale Deed were completely fraudulent documents created by Respondent No. 2 and the remaining coaccused named in the FIR, in collusion with other officials at the SubRegistrar’s office.
The Appellants further claimed that they are in possession of the original sale deed for the Subject Land, and a true copy of it was attached to the complaint. Upon examining the 2022 Sale Deed, it was apparent to them that the accused had failed to provide a PAN Number, which is mandatorily required for a valid sale deed. Furthermore, there was no mention of the 1% amount of Tax Deducted at Source (hereinafter, ‘TDS’) being deposited, which also forms part of the requirements for execution and registration of a sale deed.
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