ORDER

1. Petitioner has filed this petition under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for quashing the Crime No. 40/2022 registered at Police Station Amahiya, District Rewa under section 420/34 of the Indian Penal Code in pursuance to registration of FIR on 31.1.2022.

2. The facts leading to the case are that a written complaint was made to the police by the complainant namely, Seema Agrawal stating therein that on 2.9.2020 her husband got arrested in Chhattisgarh due to politically motivated reasons and thus he has been arrested in other numerous cases also. It has been stated by the complainant that her husband advised her to contact one Fareed so as to settle down all the cases which have been registered against him. The complainant thereafter took help of her brother namely, Dr. Ravi Agrawal and they approached Fareed, who asked them to visit Delhi for further conversation. After reaching Delhi, Fareed took them to a higher rank officer of Doordarshan namely, Ajay Vikram Singh (present petitioner), who then fixed the deal for engaging good lawyer from Delhi. The said deal was fixed for a consideration of Rs. 1.5 crore for settling down all the cases registered against the husband of the complainant. Thereafter, Fareed was in continuous touch with the complainant and asking her to pay the amount as per deal, whereupon she paid a huge amount of Rs. 2 crore to Fareed. Afterwards, Fareed had arranged a meeting with one Pintu @ Sandeep Tiwari, who was also claiming himself to be a Congress leader and had given assurance for settling all the cases of the husband of complainant, but, when nothing was done, the complainant demanded her money back, upon which Fareed informed the complainant that he had paid Rs. 50 lakhs to the present petitioner and Rs. 1.5 crore to Pintu and only kept Rs. 20 lakhs with him, but nobody returned the money and consequently complainant suffered the loss and filed the complaint.

3. Although the bail application moved by the present petitioner was allowed by the Court considering the fact that it was the complainant who herself approached the accused persons and requested them to do such thing, which in fact cannot be legally acceptable.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that if at all the facts narrated by the complainant are considered to be true on their face value, even then no case under section 420 of IPC is made out against the petitioner. As per the learned counsel, complainant herself had approached one of the co-accused to settle the cases of her husband and the offences registered in various Districts of Chhattisgarh. He has also submitted that the offence under section 420 of IPC is made out only when there is any dishonest inducement from the very inception of contract, but, here in this case, the petitioner did not approach the complainant and it was the complainant who herself had contacted the petitioner and asked for his help. He has submitted that there is nothing on record to indicate that from the very inception the petitioner was committing fraud or did any cheating with the complainant. He has submitted that it is a settled principle of law that any contract, which itself is contrary to law, and an agreement for carrying out such illegal act is executed, as per section 23 of the India Contract Act, 1872 such agreement is illegal and parties cannot compel to enforce the same and therefore, according to learned counsel for the petitioner, the impugned FIR deserves to be quashed in view of the yardstick laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal and others reported in (1992) Supp. Part 1 SCC 355.

5. Per contra, learned senior counsel appearing for the respondent has very categorically submitted that the fraud was very much existing from the very inception of the contract because after assuring to settle the cases registered against the husband of the complainant, no attempt was made and nothing was shown to have been done in pur