JUDGMENT :

1. Through the medium of afore-titled four petitions filed under Section 482 CrPC, the petitioners have challenged FIR No. 0013/2021 for offences under Sections 420/120-B RPC registered with Crime Branch, Jammu. Since all the petitioners have challenged the same FIR, as such, these petitions are being taken up together for their disposal.

2. The impugned FIR owes its origin to a written complaint lodged by the complainant/respondent No.2 with respondent No.1-Crime Branch, Jammu on 04.03.2021. As per the allegations made in the said complaint, petitioners Rakesh Kumar Gupta and Ravinder Gupta introduced respondent No.2/complainant to petitioner Champa Kumari somewhere in the month of June, 2012 and represented that she is owner of a residential house bearing No. 20/2nd Ext. Gandhi Nagar,Jammu built over land measuring 01 kanal and that she is intending to sell the said House. It was alleged that complainant expressed his willingness to purchase the said house. Accordingly, sale consideration was settled at Rs.1,92,00,000/-. It was further alleged in the complaint that an Agreement to Sell was executed between the complainant and petitioner Champa Kumari on 30.07.2012 and at that time she received an amount of Rs.45,00,000/- as token money from the complainant. It was agreed that balance amount of Rs.1,47,00,000/- shall be paid within 90 days, failing which, the complainant was to forfeit the amount paid by him in advance and in case of failure of petitioner Champa Kumari to execute the necessary documents, the complainant was to get refund of double the amount of advance. It was further stated in the complaint that the complainant was taken ill for a considerable period of time and when he recovered, he asked the above named petitioners to execute the Sale Deed, but they avoided to do so. The complainant came to know that the accused persons had transferred the said property in the name of some third person and, as such, they have deceived him.

3. The respondent-Crime Branch, after conducting preliminary verification, found that petitioners Rakesh Kumar Gupta, Ravinder Gupta and Champa Kumari have cheated the complainant in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy and have duped him of money amounting to Rs.1,92,00,000/-. It was, prima facie, found that they have committed offences under Sections 420/120-B RPC. Accordingly, the impugned FIR came to be registered.

4. The petitioners have challenged the impugned FIR on the ground that the transaction between petitioner Champa Kumari and respondent No.2/ complainant is purely of civil nature and that the same cannot be given a criminal colour. It has been submitted that petitioner Champa Kumari did receive an amount of Rs.45.00 lacs in advance, but because the complainant failed to pay the balance amount within the stipulated time, as such, the agreement executed between her and respondent No.2 came to an end. It has been submitted that respondent No.2 has approached the police after nine years of execution of Agreement to Sell dated 30.07.2012 just to pressurize and harass the petitioners. It has been contended that a bare perusal of the impugned FIR would reveal that ingredients of offence under Section 420 RPC are not attracted at all as there is nothing in the impugned FIR to show that there was dishonest intention on the part of the executants of the Agreement to Sell right from the inception. According to the petitioners, the only remedy available to respondent No.2 is to file a suit for recovery of the advance amount which he has paid to petitioner Champa Kumari or to claim specific performance of the Agreement.

5. According to petitioner Ravinder Gupta, he is not, in any manner, connected with the case and that he has been implicated only for the reason that he happens to be the son-in-law of petitioner Champa Kumari. According to him, he has been implicated only to pressurize petitioner Champa Kumari to return the advance amount received by her.

6. So far as petiti