Madras High Court Refuses To Quash Summons Issued To MD Of Manappuram Finance Ltd For Allegedly Auctioning Stolen Gold

Justice KK Ramakrishnan of the Madurai bench refused to quash the notice issued to VP Nandhakumar by the Central Bureau of Investigation under Section 41 (A) of CrPC. The court added that the procedure under Section 41(A) was applicable to all persons and whatever his position, he had to appear before the investigating officer and co-operate with the investigation.

“The procedure stated in Cr.P.C., is applicable to all persons. Once, the notice is issued under Section 41(A) of Cr.P.C., whatever his position he has to appear before the investigating officer. The investigating officer only issued the notice under Section 41(A) to co operate with the investigation, on the material collected and also the materials which were already collected by the local investigating agency and the investigating officer has satisfied the grounds as stated in section 41 (A) of Cr.P.C. In the said circumstances, this quash petition is liable to be dismissed,” the court said.

Nandhakumar had challenged the directing him to appear before the CBI's office in Madurai. The case was that one Marimuthu, who was working as an Office Assistant in Punjab National Bank wherein he stole 14,743.50 grams of Gold Jewels which was pledged by the customers and pledged the same in Manappuram's Branch in Pudukottai under his name. After receiving the amount in 2018-2019, the jewels were neither redeemed nor claimed by Marimuthu.

The investigating agency had claimed that when Punjab National Bank found out about the theft, a complaint was preferred to the local jurisdictional police and an FIR was registered in the year 2019. PNB also sent a communication to Manappuram informing it about the registration of the criminal case but Manappuram had auctioned the stolen jewels. The investigation was later transferred to the CBI on a petition filed by PNB and the CBI registered crime in 2024. The CBI then issued notice to Nandhakumar to appear which had been challenged in the present petition.

Seeking to quash the notice, Senior Advocate V Chitambaresh, appearing for Nandhakumar submitted that the summons was not issued in accordance with law and lacked essential requirements. It was also submitted that the continuation of proceedings under CrPC was not legally maintainable after the introduction of BNSS.

The petitioner also argued that Nandhakumar, as the MD of the company could not have an enduring memory of every individual transaction in the 3500 branches and the Managers of the Branch were already summoned by CBI. The petitioner relied on the Karnataka High Court's decision in Manish Maheswari Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh, wherein the summons to the MD of Twitter was quashed as there was no material to show that he had knowledge about the fake news. The petitioner also sought to quash the summons on the ground that the petitioner was 70 year old and was suffering from health complications.

The Special Public Prosecutor, however, submitted that the FIR was registered in 2019 and as per Section 531`of BNSS, the procedure under CrPC was applicable for every case registered prior to the commencement of the BNSS. It was also submitted that there were incriminating materials against Nandhakumar and that even though Manappuram was informed about the stolen gold, Nandhakumar had granted approval to auction the same.

The court agreed with the prosecution's submission and noted that whether Nandhakumar had knowledge or not was to be investigated by the CBI and presently the CBI had issued the summons only to collect materials from Nandhakumar. Thus, the court noted that he was duty bound to appear and to co-operate with the investigation.

Though the petitioner also requested to allow him to appear through video conferencing for the investigation, the court noted that as per Section 41(A) of the CrPC, the person had to personally appear before the investigating officer. The court also noted that till the filing of the final report, the investigating agency was duty bound to collect the materials in secrecy and thus there was no necessity to disclose the materials available against the petitioner. The court thus rejected the request to appear through video conferencing.

Counsel for the Petitioner: Thiru. V.Chitambaresh, Senior counsel appearing on behalf of Thiru. G.Karuppasamypandiyan

Counsel for the Respondents: Thiru. C.Muthusaravanan Special Public Prosecutor

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Mad) 441

Case Title: VP Nandhakumar v The Inspector of Police

Case No: Crl.O.P.(MD).No.19086 of 2024