The central legal point established is that the jurisdiction to inquire into or try the offence of criminal breach of trust lies with the Court within whose local jurisdiction the offence was committed, as per S. 181(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

MAITHILI SHARON, J.

( 1 ) THIS is a petition under S. 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, invoking the inherent jurisdiction of this Court, filed by the petitioners for getting quashed the proceedings of Criminal Case No. 55/96, pending in the Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Pichore, District Shivpuri.

( 2 ) THE facts of the case leading to filing of this petition may be summarised thus : The respondent No. 1-Sunita was married to the petitioner No. 1-Vijay Kumar on 9-12-1993 at Pichore District Shivpuri. The petitioner No. 2-Hari Shankar and respondent No. 2-Ajay Kumar are father-in-law and brother-in-law ('jeth') of the respondent No. 1-Smt. Sunita. The respondent No. 1-Smt. Sunita filed a private complaint for the offence under S. 406 of the Indian Penal Code against the petitioners and respondent No. 2, alleging therein that at the time of marriage she was given cash, silver and golden ornaments and other articles by her parents and other relations, as narrated in paras 2 and 3 of the petition, and thus, the said property was her Stridhan. It was further alleged by her that the said property was entrusted, for the sake of safe custody, to the accused persons, namely, petitioners and respondent No. 2 at Jhansi, the place of her 'in-laws. ' She further alleged in her complaint that thereafter, with the connivance of her mother-in-law and sister-in-law ('jethani') her duly aforesaid entrusted Stridhan property was misappropriated by the petitioners and respondent No. 2 and, thus, they had committed the offence of criminal breach of trust, punishable under S. 406 of the Indian Penal Code. The said private complaint was registered in the Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Pichore District Shivpuri as Crime No. 55/96. The petitioners and respondent No. 2 were summoned.

( 3 ) ON the basis of the above facts the petitioners have approached this Court, invoking its inherent jurisdiction under S. 482of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and prayed for the relief stated above. I have heard the learned counsel on both the sides at length, and have gone through the papers filed by the parties.

( 4 ) THE main argument advanced by learned counsel for the petitioners is that the Court at Pichore District Shivpuri had no jurisdiction to entertain the private complaint filed by the respondent No. 1 on the basis of the facts alleged therein, obviously because the alleged offence of criminal breach of trust was not committed within the local jurisdiction of that Court. On the other hand the main thrust of the learned counsel for the respondent No. 1 is that since the property was given at Pichore District Shivpuri, hence the offence would be taken to have arisen at Pichore. For the proper appraisal of the offence of criminal breach of trust, the relevant provision engrafted under S. 405 of the Indian Penal Code is reproduced as below :"criminal breach of trust 05. Whoever, being in any manner entrusted with property, or with any dominion over property dishonestly misappropriates or converts to his own use that property, or dishonestly uses or disposes of that property in violation of any direction of law prescribing the mode in which such trust is to be discharged, or of any legal contract, express or implied, which he has made touching the discharge of such trust, or wilfully suffers any other person so to do, commits "criminal breach of trust. "explanation 1 and 2 xxx xxx xxx xxxlooking to the above provision it is but clear that, firstly, the property must be entrusted by one person to another and later on it should be dishonestly misappropriated by the person entrusted with the property; until dishonest misappropriation is there, it could not be said that the offence was complete. Thus, the gravamen of the offence of criminal breach of trust lies in dishonest misappropriation. Mere entrustment, with no dishonest misappropriation, would not make the offence complete. Therefore, in the instant case, the offence wou

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