A dispute over a land sale agreement where advance payment was made is primarily civil. Criminal charges for cheating and breach of trust require proof of dishonest intention from inception and actual entrustment, which are not established by a mere breach of contract.

::ORDER::

This Criminal Petition is filed by the petitioner – accused seeking to quash the proceedings in C.C.No.1657 of 2022 on the file of the learned III Additional Junior Civil Judge-cum-III Additional Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Mahabubnagar, for the offences under Sections 420, 406, 506 read with Section 511 of the Indian Penal Code (for short ‘IPC’).

2. The case of the petitioner is that an agreement of sale was entered into between the de facto complainant and the accused herein, and an advance amount of Rs. 70 lakhs was paid. It is the further case that the accused assured that he would bring all the pattadars and execute a registered sale deed, and thereafter received another amount of Rs. 50 lakhs on 02.07.2019, for which a receipt was issued. Further, another amount of Rs. 50 lakhs was taken on 08.03.2019, and an agreement was executed, and the remaining amount of Rs. 32 lakhs was paid by way of transfer to other accounts through RTGS. Thereafter, on 11.03.2019, the accused executed a sale deed in respect of land admeasuring Ac. 52-15 guntas in favour of the de facto complainant, only by himself, assuring that the remaining pattadars would sign the said document very soon. LWs 2 to 5 are witnesses to the said document. Further, the de facto complainant transferred an amount of Rs. 2 lakhs through LW2 from his ICICI Bank account; thus, the accused has received a total amount of Rs. 2.2 crores on behalf of all the pattadars of the subject land. Apart from this, it is alleged that the de facto complainant spent an amount of Rs. 50 lakhs for leveling the land. While so, whenever the de facto complainant requested execution of the sale deed by all the pattadars, the accused started demanding further amounts to the extent of Rs. 1,50,000/- per acre, which would come to Rs. 76.50 lakhs. Thereafter, upon expiry of the agreement period, the accused, along with other pattadars, executed a registered sale deed in favour of a third party, i.e., LW6, at the rate of Rs. 7.40 lakhs per acre. It is further alleged that LW1, along with LW3, visited the office of the accused, and when he requested them to come to the registration office along with the other pattadars, the accused abused them in filthy language and threatened them with dire consequences. Thus, based on the complaint of LW1, the case was investigated and a charge sheet was laid for the offences under Sections 420, 406, and 506 read with Section 511 of the IPC.

3. Heard the submission of Sri Dharmesh DK Jaiswal, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri D.Arun Kumar, learned Additional Public Prosecutor for respondent No.1-State. In spite of providing several opportunities, learned counsel for respondent No.2 failed to argue the matter.

4. The learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the de facto complainant has suppressed the fact that the land in dispute was sold to third parties, and that respondent No.2, i.e., the de facto complainant, has attested the sale deed as a witness; as such, no offence is made out based on the allegations levelled in the complaint. He further submitted that the de facto complainant was very much aware of the transactions and was sailing along with the petitioner herein while executing the sale of the land in favour of third parties. He further submitted that the dispute is purely civil in nature, but the de facto complainant has resorted to filing the present complaint to settle the scores on the civil side by raising false allegations. He further submitted that no prima facie case is made out against the petitioner even if the allegations are perused in detail, and thus, the principle laid down by the Hon’ble Apex Court in State of Haryana and others v. Bhajan Lal and others , 1992 SCC (Cri) 426 has to be invoked, and the proceedings are liable to be quashed. He also relied upon the decision of the Hon’ble Apex Court in Arshad Neyaz Khan v. State of Jharkhand and another , 2025 SCC OnLine SC 2058

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