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Ketan Kantilal Seth vs. The State of Gujarat & Ors.

Transfer Petition (Criminal) · 2022 INSC 945Decided 9 Sept 2022
Transfer Petition (Criminal) Nos. 333-348 of 2021
J.K. Maheshwari

Background

The petitioner, a director of M/s Home Trade Limited, faced 19 FIRs across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Delhi and West Bengal alleging that he and a co-director fraudulently dealt in and failed to deliver government securities, causing losses to various buyers including a cooperative bank. He sought to have all the pending criminal trials transferred to a single court in Mumbai, since most of the transactions and witnesses were centred there. An unrelated agriculturist, claiming to depend on the affected cooperative bank, applied to intervene in the transfer proceedings.

Decision Breakdown

The Court first dismissed the intervention application, holding that a third party with no direct stake or public-interest ground has no locus to intervene in a transfer petition confined to venue. On the merits, the Court found that the FIRs shared a common core of allegations, a common set of accused, and a heavy concentration of witnesses (236 of 689) in Mumbai, and that a Bombay High Court order had effectively split the trial of one co-accused from the others, causing prejudice. Given the two-decade delay, the multiplicity of proceedings and the risk of unfair trial from fragmented proceedings, the Court allowed the transfer of all 16 pending cases to the Principal Judge, Bombay City Civil and Sessions Court, with directions on record transmission, accused appearance, framing of charges within two months, and completion of trial within two years.

Lesson Learnt

The Supreme Court's power to transfer criminal cases under Section 406 CrPC exists to secure a fair trial and can be used to consolidate multiple FIRs with common facts, accused and witnesses into one court, especially where splitting trials among co-accused has caused unfairness, but a stranger to the case cannot use such proceedings to intervene without a direct or public-interest stake.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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