Calcutta High Court: In a criminal revisional application filed by the petitioner under Section 482 read with Sections 397 and 401, Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC) seeking quashing of an FIR registered under Sections 420, 406, 448, 427, 506 and 120-B, Penal Code, 1860 (IPC), along with the consequential charge-sheet and criminal proceedings, Uday Kumar, J., allowed the revisional application and held that the continuation of the criminal proceedings was unwarranted and amounted to an abuse of the process of law, having regard to the civil and proprietary nature of the dispute.
Facts
The case arose from a property dispute involving a 77-year-old senior citizen who owned a 2-storey residential building on approximately 2 cottahs of land at Mouza Chandiberia, New Adarshapally, North 24 Parganas. According to the prosecution, the complainant was subjected to physical and mental harassment by his son and daughter-in-law, who forcibly entered his premises and drove him out of his home, compelling him to take shelter at his daughter’s residence in Kolkata. To regain possession of his property, the complainant sought legal assistance from the petitioner, an advocate, petitioner along with co-accused. The proceedings were initiated before the Calcutta High Court and the complainant was restored to physical possession of the property on 15 July 2021, with police assistance. Meanwhile, on the petitioner’s suggestion that an aged person would face hardship running around courts and police stations, a registered General Power of Attorney was executed on 24 March 2021 in favour of the co-accused, described as the petitioner’s office assistant/clerk. . On 25 March 2021, the attorney holder executed a registered sale deed transferring the property in favour of the petitioner.
The dispute escalated when the complainant returned from Jharkhand after attending his granddaughter’s wedding and allegedly discovered that the petitioner had broken the locks of the house, demolished 4 rental rooms and a bathroom, and taken forcible possession of the property. The complainant subsequently lodged a written complaint, leading to the registration of FIR under Sections 420, 406, 448, 427, 506 and 120-B IPC. During the investigation, the police recorded statements under Sections 161 and 164 CrPC, seized original deeds and examined financial transactions before submitting a charge-sheet under Section 173 CrPC. Parallelly, the petitioner instituted a suit before the Civil Judge (Junior Division), Barasat and by an order dated 3 March 2023, the civil court, upon considering the rival claims and financial transactions, observed that the defendants had failed to establish a prima facie case of fraud at that stage and granted an injunction protecting the plaintiff’s possession of the suit property.
Submissions
The petitioner contended that the criminal proceedings were an abuse of the process of law and represented an attempt to convert a civil dispute concerning property and contractual rights into criminal prosecution. It was argued that the transaction was founded upon a registered General Power of Attorney and a registered sale deed executed before the competent registration authority, which, it was submitted, carry a statutory presumption of validity until set aside by a competent civil court. The petitioner further submitted that the essential ingredient of cheating under Sections 415 and 420 IPC i.e. dishonest inducement from the inception of the transaction, was absent. According to the petitioner, the consideration had been paid through cheques and bank transfers, supported by money receipts and payment directions acknowledged by the complainant and members of his family.
The State and the opposite parties opposed quashing, contending that the allegations disclosed cognizable offences warranting a full-fledged trial. They emphasised the fiduciary relationship between the petitioner, an advocate, and the complainant, an elderly person who had allegedly sought legal assistance after being dispossessed of his home. The prosecution alleged that the petitioner had abused this position of trust by procuring a General Power of Attorney and arranging the transfer of the property in his own favour within 24 hours. It further contended that there had been no contemporaneous payment of the sale consideration and that the subsequent token payments were made months later and were grossly disproportionate to the property’s market value.
The prosecution also relied on the complainant’s judicial statement under Section 164 CrPC and the investigative findings concerning the alleged breaking of locks, forcible possession and demolition of rental structures. According to the respondents, these circumstances raised serious allegations of cheating, criminal breach of trust, criminal trespass and mischief, which could not be conclusively determined without a trial.
Issues and Observations
On the issue whether a dispute arising out of registered instruments of property transfer, where financial transactions have been acted upon and the substantive issues of title, agency, and contractual validity are actively sub judice before a competent civil court, can form the lawful foundation of a criminal prosecution under Sections 420, 406, 448, 427, 506, and 120-B IPC, the Court noted that it is a well-settled principle of criminal jurisprudence that civil and criminal remedies are not mutually exclusive, and a given set of facts may simultaneously give rise to civil and criminal liabilities. However, Supreme Court has repeatedly cautioned that criminal courts must exercise extreme vigilance to prevent the weaponisation of criminal proceedings as a pressure tactic or an alternative shortcut to settle civil property disputes, contractual breaches, and title disagreements.
Placing reliance on Indian Oil Corpn. v. NEPC India Ltd., (2006) 6 SCC 736, the Court said that the ratio decidendi of this judgment firmly establishes that where a dispute is fundamentally civil in nature, turning upon contractual rights, agency powers, and property transfers, and in view of absence of the essential foundational elements of criminal intent (mens rea) such as dishonest inducement from the very inception (ab initio) to fasten the offence of cheating, criminal prosecution cannot be allowed to proceed.
Similarly, relying on Nageswar Prasad Singh v. Narayan Singh, (1998) 5 SCC 694, the Court noted that civil property disputes concerning the execution and validity of deeds must be adjudicated by a civil forum, and that routing them through criminal courts amounts to an abuse of process.
On the issue whether the invocation and continuation of criminal machinery in such factual matrices constitute an abuse of the process of law warranting interference of this Court under Section 482 CrPC, the Court observed that while the complainant alleges breach of trust and fraud, the contemporaneous documentary evidence, including bank statements, structured payment directions, and money receipts dated 8 January 2022 and 13 January 2022, proves that monetary considerations were indeed remitted and withdrawn through banking channels. Moreover, the trial court, while adjudicating upon injunction applications, meticulously evaluated these financial trails, third-party agreements, and conduct of the parties, recording a categorical finding that the respondents failed to establish a prima facie case of fraud at that stage and protected the petitioners peaceful possession over the suit property by an order of injunction. Thus, when a competent civil court exercising civil jurisdiction is already seized of the lis concerning title, the validity of deeds, and the civil consequences of a transaction, and has explicitly observed that monies were accepted and withdrawn and that fraud has not been established at the threshold, permitting a parallel criminal trial on identical allegations against an advocate and connected parties would lead to conflicting judicial outcomes and perpetrate a gross abuse of the judicial process.
The Court held that the continuation of the impugned criminal proceeding was wholly unwarranted and constituted an abuse of the process of the court. The Court quashed and set aside the FIR along with the consequential charge-sheet and the entire criminal proceeding pending before the Chief Judicial Magistrate at Barasat, North 24 Parganas.
[Subrata Halder v. State of W.B., 2026 SCC OnLine Cal 15286, decided on 6-10-2026]
Judgment Authored by Justice Uday Kumar
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the petitioner: Mr. Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Advocate; Mr. Tapan Jyoti Bose, Advocate; and Ms. Saheli Mukherjee, Advocate.
For the State: Mr. Kallol Mondal, Public Prosecutor; Mr. Somnath Adhikary, Advocate; and Ms. Samira Grewal, Advocate.
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