Civil disputes regarding debt recovery cannot be converted into criminal proceedings for breach of trust or cheating unless clear criminal intent and the essential ingredients of the offenses are established.

ORDER

This petition has been filed to quash the FIR registered in Crime No.415 of 2022 on the file of the first respondent.

2. Heard the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner and the learned Government Advocate (Crl.Side) appearing for the first respondent.

Perused the materials available on record.

3. The case of the prosecution is that the defacto complainant/second respondent, who had retired from private service under the voluntary retirement scheme, was introduced to A1 to A3 through his friend Murali. The accused allegedly requested the complainant to lend a sum of Rs.45,00,000/- and assured repayment within three months. Believing their representation and on the assurance given by A2, who issued a cheque as security, the complainant paid the said amount to the accused. However, after receiving the money, the accused failed to repay the same despite repeated demands made by the complainant.

4. It is the further case of the prosecution that on 20.07.2022, at about

4.00 p.m., when the complainant went to the house of A1 and questioned them regarding non-payment of the amount for the past eight years, A1 and A2 abused him in filthy language, threatened him and his family with dire consequences by showing a knife. Hence, the complaint.

5. Based on the complaint lodged by the second respondent, the first respondent registered an FIR in Crime No.415 of 2022 for the offences under Sections 294(b), 406, 420, 506(ii) of IPC.

6. A perusal of an FIR reveals that, admittedly, the petitioner along with other accused had borrowed a sum of Rs.45,00,000/- from the defacto complainant and subsequently failed to repay the same. Therefore, it is purely a loan transaction and no offence is made out under Sections 406 and 420 of IPC. In so far as the offence under Section 506(ii) of IPC is concerned, the allegations contained in the FIR are vague and do not attract the essential ingredients of criminal intimidation. Hence, the FIR is nothing but a clear abuse of process of law and the entire allegations cannot be sustained as against the petitioner and is liable to be quashed.

7. The defacto complainant has alleged in the complaint that the petitioner has committed offences under Sections 406 and 420 of IPC. It would thus be necessary to examine the ingredients of the above offences and whether the allegations made in the complaint, read on their face, attract those offences under the Penal Code. Section 405 of Penal Code reads thus:-

405. Criminal breach of trust — 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".

A careful reading of Section 405 of IPC shows that the ingredients of a criminal breach of trust are as follows:-

(i) A person should have been entrusted with property, or entrusted with dominion over property; (ii) That person should dishonestly misappropriate or convert to their own use that property, or dishonestly use or dispose of that property or willfully suffer any other person to do so; and (iii) That such misappropriation, conversion, use or disposal should be in violation of any direction of law prescribing the mode in which such trust is to be discharged, or of any legal contract which the person has made, touching the discharge of such trust.

Entrustment is an essential ingredient of the