The court ruled that criminal proceedings should not be initiated for civil disputes, as essential ingredients for the alleged offences were not present, emphasizing the need to prevent abuse of the legal process.

ORDER :

ANAND SHARMA, J.

1. This criminal misc. petition has been filed by the petitioners with a prayer to quash FIR No.0088/2018 registered at Police Station Alwar Gate Ajmer, District Ajmer for the offences under Section 506 , 420, 406 & 120-B of IPC .

2. It is contended that the complainant-respondent No.2 filed one criminal complaint in the Court of Judicial Magistrate No.6, Ajmer, mentioning therein that the complainant has been dealing in the business of scrap in Ajmer and the accused-persons contacted the complainant at Ajmer and represented that they have heavy stock of scrap in Mumbai, which they intended to sell the same to the complainant. Believing upon the statements made by the accused-persons the complainant transferred amount of Rs.20 lacs on 26.09.2008 and thereafter 3 lacs on 08.05.2010.. It was submitted that the promise to deliver the scrap was made in the year 2008 and substantial amount was also paid to the accused-persons in the year 2008 to 2010, yet, when the goods were not delivered, the complainant sent one notice in the year 2013 and after receiving the notice on different occasions, and in different instalments, part of the amount received by the accused was returned back in the year 2013 & 2014, however, instead of repaying the remaining amount, the accused-persons threatened the complainant which amounts to cheating with the complainant and for that purpose on the basis of criminal complaint, FIR was lodged on 21.03.2018.

3. It is submitted by learned counsel for the petitioners that FIR lodged by complainant is malicious in nature and even bare perusal of contents of FIR would not constitute any cognizable offence against the petitioners. Bare reading of FIR would reveal that this is a matter of purely civil nature as commercial transactions, which took place from the year 2008 to 2013-14 have been mentioned, where there was some promise to deliver goods and consideration was also tendered against such promise and on account of non-fulfilment of promise, part of the amount was returned back. It was submitted that there was no inducement on the part of the petitioners, nor was there any allegation with regard to entrustment of any amount to the petitioners. Hence, the necessary ingredients of Section 415 IPC , which defines cheating as well as 406 , which narrates criminal trust are not there in this case.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that in the aforesaid circumstances, in order to pressurize the petitioners and to avoid the civil litigation, a device has been invented by complainant through criminal complaint and, in case, FIR in question is not quashed, it would cause miscarriage of justice and grave prejudice to the petitioners.

5. Learned counsel for the complainant as well as learned Public Prosecutor opposed the criminal misc. petition. It was submitted that the jurisdiction under Section 482 Cr.P.C. is very limited and it cannot be extended to enquire into the insights and scope of allegations, more particularly when FIR shows that the intention of accused-petitioners from the very beginning was to cheat the complainant against a fake and false promise and valuable consideration was also transferred at the inducement of the accused-petitioners by the complainant. It is submitted that nature of the business in question was such that the complainant was required to wait for a long time and since even after 10 years, neither the scrap was delivered, nor the entire amount was repaid, complainant had no other alternative except to lodge criminal complaint against the accused-petitioners.

6. Learned counsel for the complainant relied upon the