HC quashes FIR against Swraj Paul, pulls up complainant

KOLKATA: An attempt to institute a criminal case against leading NRI industrialist Lord Swraj Paul has failed with the Calcutta High Court quashing criminal proceeding after coming down heavily on the complainant company controlled by his brother-in-law M D Jindal.

Machino Finance, the company controlled by Jindal, had filed an FIR, alleging that shares held by it and Machino Plastic in Caparo Maruti Limited (CML) in which the Pauls have majority shares, were cancelled illegally.

The FIR was registered against the NRI industrialist, his son and others for allegedly entering into criminal conspiracy to forge the documents relating to CML's shares.

"Allegations made in FIR do not reveal prima facie materials of any kind of offence allegedly made in the FIR sufficient to allow investigational proceeding," Justice P N Sinha said.

The court said the allegations made in the FIR or complaint were "absurd" and "inherently improbable" and "on the basis of such allegation no prudent person would ever reach a conclusion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused."

"It is clear that the complainant (Machino Finance) came to court not with clean hands and suppressed material facts...," the court said.

Caparo, Maruti and Jindal had entered into a joint venture agreement (JVA) to set up Caparo Maruti Ltd in which Caparo Group had 60 per cent shares, Maruti Udyog Ltd 20 per cent and Jindal 20 per cent.