S.482 CrPC Petition Maintainable In Exceptional Cases Where Remedy Of Revision U/S 397 CrPC Is Also Available: Andhra Pradesh High Court

Brief Facts of the Case

The criminal petition was filed to challenge the order passed by Special Judge for SPE & ACB cases-cum-Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge freezing of petitioner's State Bank of India's bank account. The respondent had freezed the current account of petitioner company by invoking the powers under Section 102 CrPC (Power of police officer to seize property having any suspicion of commission of any offence) for the offences of criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust with fraudulent intention to divert Government funds by raising fake/ forged/ bogus invoices and diversion of the public funds through associated shell companies of the accused in connivance with others and caused wrongful loss to a tune of Rs. 371 crores.

Contention of Both Sides

The petitioner filed a section 482 CrPC petition to contend that at the time of freezing of the account of the petitioner only Rs. 2 crores was available in the account but the Court below erroneously had directed to keep the amount of Rs. 23 crores which the petitioner had received from various customers subsequent to freezing of the account. By virtue of the said order of freezing, the petitioner is not able to run the company having more than 100 employees.

The respondent raised an objection with regard to maintainability of the petition under Section 482 CrPC. It relied on the decision in an identical matter by Andhra Pradesh High Court in Criminal Petition No. 185 of 2021 in which it was held that the petition was not maintainable under section 482 CrPC when the alternative remedy under the statute was available to petitioners of filing a revision petition under Section 397(1) of CrPC. The investigating officer can claim custody of the property of the accused under Sections 451 or 457 CrPC by filing a petition before the trial court. The accused has a right to challenge the said order by filing a revision under Section 397(1) of CrPC.

The Senior Counsel Sri. B. Adi Narayana Rao appearing on behalf of petitioner relied on Supreme Court decision in Prabhu Chawla v. State of Rajasthan (2016) in which it was held that a provision under Section 397 CrPC was not a bar to maintain the petition under Section 482 CrPC in exceptional circumstances.

Findings of the Court

In the present case, Justice D. Ramesh observed that at the time of freezing of the account, the petitioner was having only Rs. 2 crores and subsequently the petitioner had received amounts from various clients to run the business. Hence, the subsequent amounts could not be freezed as there was no reasonable suspicion about the amounts having any connection with the commission of crime.

Accordingly, in order to secure ends of justice, the Court referred the matter to the Division Bench for fresh consideration.

Case Title :M/s. Design Tech Systems Pvt.Ltd., Versus THE STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

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