The Kerala High Court on Thursday dismissed a plea by Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader and Manjeswaram MLA M.C. Kamaruddin for quashing the FIRs registered against him for cheating those who have invested in a group of jewellery companies run by him.
When a petition filed by the MLA seeking to quash the FIRs came up for hearing, his counsel submitted that he was not the managing director of the company. He was only one of the directors of the company. No other directors were arraigned as accused.
The counsel alleged that the ruling party had influenced the police to get criminal cases registered against him alone. In fact, he had no direct knowledge of the investment made by the complainants. Moreover, he was not a signatory to the agreements signed between the company and the investors, the counsel said.
Justice V.G. Arun while dismissing the MLA's petition seeking to quash the FIRs observed that the mere fact that the petitioner was described as a ‘whole-time director’ in the statement of the investigating officer was not sufficient to hold the investigation to be illegal, since Section 2(94) of the Companies Act only stated that a 'Whole Time Director' includes a director in the whole time employment of the company.
The court further observed that the question whether the petitioner had conspired with the first accused Pookoya Thangal, managing director of the company, in inducing the complainants to make deposits and whether the petitioner was personally present at the time of execution of the agreement were all matters which called for detailed investigation.
The allegation that the agreement was created with the intention of creating an impression that the depositors had become a shareholder could not be brushed aside. The suspicion of the intention to deceive having existed from the inception could not at this point of time, be held unreasonable. The mere fact that some payment, termed as the dividend was made, was not sufficient to efface this suspicion especially in view of the fact that the deposited amount was not repaid in spite of repeated requests. Therefore, the investigation could not be scuttled at this stage.
