HC stays proceedings against Hero MotoCorp, Chairman Pawan Munjal in forgery case

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said the stay will remain in force till the next date of hearing on December 6. In the meantime, the parties can “explore possibilities of a compromise,” the court said.

Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, representing Hero MotoCorp, told the HC that India’s largest two-wheeler maker and the complainant, Roop Darshan Pandey, have a pending civil dispute before an arbitrator and that there is no question of criminality in the matter.

Pandey, the promoter of Brains Logistics, had on October 5 registered a complaint following a trial court order against Hero MotoCorp and various company officials including Munjal. The logistics company provided manpower and related services till March 2009 after which Hero MotoCorp didn’t renew the contract.

Seeking quashing of the proceedings, Hero MotoCorp told the HC that the logistics company had “misled” the Delhi court by intentionally misconstruing the documents that were filed by the two-wheeler manufacturer before the sole arbitrator, former Supreme Court judge H.S. Bedi. “The documents alleged to be the bills are not the monthly bills but are summary sheets of the bills,” the company said.

According to the petition, Hero Honda Motors changed its name to Hero MotoCorp in 2011. “Thus, upon mere change of name, the documents of the previous years i.e. of 2009 and 2010 cannot be invalidated or stated to be fake or false, when those documents were only certified as true copies by the company existing at that point of time i.e. Hero MotoCorp,” it stated.The complainant being aware of this position, however, intentionally suppressed material facts and presented the documents to the trial court in a wrong manner so that the “Metropolitan Magistrate is misled into passing a direction for registration of FIR,” Hero MotoCorp said.The petition further said that while similar complaints were filed by Pandey before the income tax authority and the Registrar of Companies questioning the same transaction, no proceedings were initiated against the two-wheeler maker.

According to the FIR, Hero MotoCorp and its officials had allegedly created fake bills of over Rs 5.94 crore between 2009 and 2010, which were signed and stamped by the company.

The complainant also alleged that the accused had cheated the income tax department by falsely obtaining a CENVAT credit of Rs 55.15 crore by creating a false debit balance against the logistics company by falsifying its books of accounts. However, the complainant said it did not issue any bills to Hero MotoCorp between 2009 and 2010.