The court held that the receipt of a substantial advance payment and failure to execute a sale deed within the agreed timeframe, especially when the property may not be legally transferable, constitutes a prima facie case of cheating and criminal breach of trust, justifying the refusal to quash the FIR under Section 482 CrPC.

Order

Arguments Concluded On:

06.04.2026

Order Reserved On:

06.04.2026

Full Order/Operative Part Pronounced:

Full Order

Pronounced On:

15.04.2026

The present criminal miscellaneous petition has been preferred under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, invoking the inherent jurisdiction of this Court for quashing of FIR No. 609/2022 registered at Police Station Mathura Gate, District Bharatpur for the offence under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code and all consequential proceedings arising therefrom.

Briefly stated, the facts giving rise to the present petition are that the complainant-respondent Mahendra lodged the impugned FIR alleging that the petitioner-Mukesh Kumar, being the khatedar tenant of certain land, had executed an agreement to sell dated 15.09.2017 in favour of the complainant’s grandfather and had received a sum of Rs. 20,00,000/- as advance consideration. It is alleged that despite repeated requests, the petitioner failed to execute the sale deed and thereby committed the offence of cheating.

Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the allegations made in the FIR, even if taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, do not disclose the commission of any cognizable offence. It is contended that the dispute, at its core, is purely of a civil nature arising out of an agreement to sell. It is further submitted that the petitioner was always ready and willing to perform his part of the contract and, in fact, had issued a notice to the complainant calling upon him to pay the remaining consideration and get the sale deed executed. However, the complainant-respondent failed to fulfill his contractual obligations.

Per contra, learned Public Prosecutor as well as learned counsel for the complainant-respondent have opposed the petition and submitted that the petitioner has received a substantial amount and has failed to execute the sale deed, thereby prima facie attracting the ingredients of the offence under Section 420 IPC. It is, therefore, urged that the matter requires investigation and this Court ought not to exercise its inherent jurisdiction at this stage.

I have considered the submissions made at the Bar and have perused the material available on record.

The record reflects that the accused-petitioner, Mukesh, is stated to have issued a notice dated 16.05.2018 calling upon the complainant-respondent to comply with the agreement for sale allegedly executed on 15.09.2017 between the parties through the complainant’s grandfather. However, at the outset, it is significant to note that no documentary proof or receipt has been placed on record to establish that the said notice was ever served upon or received by the complainant-respondent Mahendra.

A further crucial aspect emerges from the agreement for sale itself, wherein the accused-petitioner had specifically undertaken to execute the final sale deed in favor of the complainant within a period of three months from the date of the agreement, i.e., 15.09.2017. In this backdrop, the issuance of the alleged notice after a lapse of approximately eight months, i.e., on 16.05.2018, assumes considerable importance.

Even if, for the sake of argument, the contention of the accused-petitioner is accepted that the complainant-respondent did not evince sufficient interest in getting the sale deed executed, the contractual obligation to complete the transaction within three months rested squarely upon the accused-petitioner. The failure to issue any notice or take steps within the stipulated period raises a substantial doubt regarding the bona-fides of the accused-petitioner.

Moreover, it is an admitted position, as recorded in the agreement dated 15.09.2017 and also reflected in the charge-sheet, that a sum of ₹20,00,000/- (Twenty Lakhs) was paid by the complainant-respondent through his grandfather, Shri Roop Singh, by way of RTGS from his account in Bharatpur Central Co-operative Bank bearing number 15004111110012875 to the account of the a