Kaushik Chatterjee v. State of Haryana
Background
The petitioner, a former risk officer of a non-banking finance company, was accused in three separate loan-fraud FIRs lodged by his former employer at a police station in Gurugram, Haryana. He sought to have all three cases transferred to Delhi, arguing that the loans in question were actually sanctioned in Delhi, Indore and Surat, not Gurugram, so the Gurugram police and courts had no territorial jurisdiction to handle them.
Decision Breakdown
The Court undertook a detailed review of how territorial jurisdiction works in criminal cases under the Code of Criminal Procedure, distinguishing it from jurisdiction over the offence itself. It held that whether Gurugram genuinely had jurisdiction was a disputed question of fact, turning on where the loan agreements were executed, where security was located, and similar details, that could only be resolved through evidence at trial, not decided upfront in a transfer petition. The transfer petitions were accordingly dismissed, while leaving it open to the petitioner to raise the jurisdictional objection before the trial court once evidence is led.
Lesson Learnt
If you believe a criminal case against you was filed in the wrong city or court, you generally cannot get it transferred by the Supreme Court merely on that ground: jurisdictional objections usually have to be raised and proved with evidence before the trial court itself.