Registration of FIR for civil disputes under criminal guise is unsustainable; courts must prevent misuse of criminal law.

ORAL ORDER

The petitioners-accused Nos.1 to 3 stand at the doors of this Court calling in question registration of a crime in Crime No.10/2024 registered for offences punishable under Sections420 and 34 of the IPC .

2. Heard Sri R. C. Nagaraja, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners and Sri Vinay Mahadevaiah, learned HCGP representing the State.

3. The complainant, though served two years ago, has remained unrepresented even today. Therefore, the learned counsel for the petitioners and the learned HCGP are heard.

The facts enumerated are as follows:

4. Respondent No.2 is said to be in possession of an unregistered agreement of sale with the petitioners, agreeing to purchase the schedule property within three months from the date of its agreement. The agreement was entered into on 25.10.2014. On 31.12.2022, it transpires that, without the consent or bringing it to the knowledge of the petitioners, respondent No.2 executed a registered agreement of sale in favour of his wife. On the basis of the agreement of sale that was entered into on 25.10.2024, the petitioners then executed a registered sale deed in favour of one M/s. Essem 18 Infra LLP. Upon the said execution of the sale deed, respondent No.2 and his wife filed a suit for specific performance of the contract entered into on 25.10.2014 in O.S. No.30/2024. After the institution of the suit in O.S. No.30/2024, sets the criminal law into motion for the offence punishable under Section 420 of the IPC on the score that the petitioners have cheated the complainant by entering into the aforesaid agreement. The petitioners are before this Court calling in question the registration of the crime.

5. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioners would reiterate the averments made in the petition and submit that a purely civil dispute is given a colour of criminality for an agreement that was entered into in the year 2014 by setting the criminal law into motion in the year 2024.

6. The learned HCGP would submit that the State has preferred an application seeking vacation of the interim order on the ground that the moment the crime was registered, the investigation has been stayed and they should be permitted to investigate in a very serious offence.

7. I have given my anxious consideration to the submissions made by the respective learned counsel and have perused the material on record.

8. Afore narrated facts are a matter of record. The petitioners entered into an agreement of sale with the complainant in the year 2014. Ten years passed by. Several transactions happened in the interregnum. A civil suit has been instituted by the complainant in O.S. No.30/2024 seeking specific performance of the contract entered into in the year2014. Not stopping at that, a complaint comes to be registered on 13.01.2024 for offence punishable under Section 420 of the IPC . Since the entire issue has now triggered from the complaint, I deem it appropriate to notice the complaint. It reads as follows:

9. The complaint becomes a crime in Crime No.10/2024 for the offence punishable under Section 420 of the IPC . of the has its ingredients in Section 415 . mandates that the accused must lure the victim into a transaction with a dishonest intention right from the inception. The case at hand projects an agreement of sale between the parties of the year 2014 and the complainant and his wife have also filed a suit for specific performance in O.S. No.30/2024. If that be so, the issue that is purely civil in nature is now given a cloak of crime in Crime No.10/2024. In that light, the crime so registered is rendered unsustainable. Per