IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that civil disputes should not be cloaked as criminal offenses, emphasizing the need for clear evidence of criminal intent to sustain charges of cheating.

ORDER :

V. Sujatha, J.

The instant petition under Section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (for short Cr.P.C.,) has been filed by the Petitioner/Accused, seeking quashment of proceedings against her in C.C.No.4946 of 2018 on the file of the Court of the learned IV Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Vijayawada, Krishna District, for the offences punishable under Sections 420 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (for short "IPC") and 156(3) of Cr.P.C.

2. Brief facts of the case are as follows :

i. Petitioner herein is the accused No.1 and respondent No.2 herein is the defacto-complainant. Respondent No.2 and his wife after retiring from their respective employments intended to purchase house plots. When they came to know through the mediators that the petitioner was offering to sell the subject plot, the respondent No.2 agreed to purchase the same for Rs.5,00,000/-. Later, the petitioner showed some plot and represented that the land is covered under the sale deed purchased by him from one Sri M. Sambasiva Rao. When the respondent No.2 demanded the petitioner to measure the land, he told that due to rainy season, it was not possible to measure and fix boundaries and assured to do the same after registration and registered the subject plot.

ii. Thereafter, on several occasions when the respondent No.2 demanded the petitioner to measure the land, he postponed the same. In the year 2010, the petitioner showed some plot and represented that the same is covered under the sale deed. But, respondent No.2 came to know that without having the subject land in the name of the petitioner, the petitioner executed sale deed with an intention to cheat the complainant. On that, respondent No.2 lodged a private complaint before the learned IV Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Vijayawada, who in turn forwarded the complaint to respondent No.1. Based on the said compliant, the respondent No.1 registered the complaint in FIR No.862 of 2015, dated 18.12.2015 under Section 420 IPC. After completion of investigation, police filed charge sheet and the same was numbered as C.C.No.4946 of 2018 on the file of the Court of the learned IV Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Vijayawada. Aggrieved by the same, Petitioner/Accused filed the present petition seeking quashment of the proceedings against her in C.C.No.4946 of 2018 on the file of the Court of the learned IV Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Vijayawada.

3. Heard Sri B.V. Anjaneyulu, learned counsel for the Petitioner/Accused and learned Public Prosecutor for State/Respondent No.1 and perused the entire material available on record.

4. Learned counsel for the Petitioner/Accused would submit that the petitioner is falsely implicated in this case and the allegations mentioned in the complaint do not satisfy the ingredients of the offences as alleged in the charge sheet. He further submits that respondent No.2 did not mention the date, on which, he demanded for measurement and fixation of boundaries. He also argued that the matter between the parties is a dispute of purely civil in nature and a civil dispute has been given a criminal cloak. As no offence punishable under various sections of the IPC is made out, he has prayed to quash the entire criminal proceedings initiated by respondent No.2. Therefore, the continuation of proceedings against the Petitioner is an abuse of the process of law. In support of his contention, learned counsel for the Petitioner has placed reliance on the judgment of Hon'ble Apex Court in Rajeshbhai Muljibhai Patel and Others v. State of Gujarat and Another, (2020) 3 SCC 794 and the judgment of Coordinate Bench of this Court in Lokireddy Satyanarayana Reddy v. State of A.P. and another, 2023 SCC Online (AP) 997.

5. Refuting the same, learned Assistant Public Prosecutor would submit that there are specific allegations against the petitioner. He further submits that the criminal proceedings could not be quashed merely on the ground that the dispute was of