Authority: Calcutta High Court (Criminal Revisional Jurisdiction, Appellate Side)

Order Date: 01.07.2026

Case Overview

  • Petitioners: Eraaya Lifespaces Limited (public limited company) and its directors (Petitioner No.2‑4,7‑8), Company Secretary (Petitioner No.5), and Chief Financial Officer (Petitioner No.6). They filed CRR 2895 of 2025 seeking quash of investigational proceeding GR Case No. 3134 of 2025 filed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Murshidabad.
  • Opposite Party No.2: A shareholder of Eraaya who lodged a complaint on 28‑02‑2025, leading to Berhampore Police Station FIR (Case No. 1057 of 2025) on 17‑05‑2025. The complaint alleged forged Special Power of Attorney (SPA), collusion between petitioner directors and accused, breach of SEBI Act, and offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) – sections 3(5), 336, 338, 340(2), 49, 61(2).
  • Accused No.1: Sunil Agarwal, who filed a company petition before the NCLT, New Delhi (Company Case No. 11 of 2025) seeking a status‑quo order on 13‑02‑2025, allegedly using forged SPA notarised by Advocate Rakesh Kumar Jain (who denied execution).
  • Specific allegations: forged signatures of Sarad Kumar Bagga in SPA, provision of confidential company emails by CFO (Petitioner 5) to accused, share‑price manipulation, creation of a “valuable security” under BNS, and conspiracy to cheat shareholders.
  • Petitioners’ arguments (advocated by Senior Counsel Sandipan Ganguly): no prima facie case; Baharampore police lack territorial jurisdiction; complaint is malafide; forgery liability rests only on the maker (Accused 1); no concrete evidence of collusion; jurisdictional objections under Section 156(2) CrPC and Section 173(1) BNS.
  • Opposite party’s counsel (Aman Lekhi) counter‑argued that petitioner 5 supplied information to Accused 1, that the SPA was forged, that the conspiracy benefitted Eraaya by avoiding interest on USD 120 million FCCB, and that investigation must continue.
  • The Court examined statutory provisions: BNS sections 336(1), 338, 340(2), 61(2); CrPC sections 156(2), 173(1); Section 528 BNS; and precedents (Neeharika Infrastructure (2021), Bhajanlal’s case, Vinod Raghubanshi (2013), Satvinder Kaur (1999), Rasiklal Thakkar (2010), etc.).
  • The Court held that the FIR discloses cognizable offences; jurisdiction objections are untenable because Section 156(2) allows investigation irrespective of territorial limits; the High Court cannot pre‑empt investigation or assess the truth of allegations at this stage.
  • The Court noted that the allegations are not “absurd or improbable” and therefore do not meet the threshold for quashing under the Apex Court guidelines.

Final Outcome

  • The application for quashing (CRR 2895 of 2025) is dismissed.
  • The investigating agency (Baharampore Police) is directed to continue the investigation and conclude it at the earliest.
  • Connected applications are disposed of.

Topics: Legal Dispute, Corporate Governance