Cheating

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Uttaranchal High Court: Lok Pal Singh, J., addressed an application that sought to quash criminal proceedings under Sections 420, 468, 471 of Penal Code, 1860 and Section 66(D) of Information Technology Act pending in Judicial Magistrate Court.

In the present matter, a complaint was lodged against the applicant that he committed forgery for purpose of cheating by using as genuine the forged and fraudulent document with the intention to cause damage to the Trust and hacked the information stored in the computer.

A charge-sheet was submitted by against the applicant in respect of selfsame offences. Further, Magistrate took cognizance and summoned the applicant to face the trial in respect to the mentioned offences.

Siddhartha Singh, applicant for the counsel submitted that the applicant was an old trustee and was appointed as the President of Kailashanand Mission Trust. He submitted that proceedings against the applicant are nothing but the outcome of the revengeful activity of the complainant and his associates. Complainant concealed the fact of the applicant being the President of the Trust and went on to lodging an FIR against him in the name of him being an “Unknown Hacker”.

According to the applicant’s counsel, the entire proceedings are nothing but an abuse of process of law and Court.

Senior Advocate, Rakesh Thapliyal on behalf of the complainant due to nefarious activities of the applicant, Swami Kailashanand was annoyed with him and by way of a resolution of trust, he cancelled all rights of the applicant and even removed him from the post of Manager of Trust.

He further submitted that various complaints were filed against the applicant for forging Trust’s letter pad, seals and receipt book and resolutions.

Applicant’s Counsel while relying on the Supreme Court case in, International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI) v Nimra Cerglass Technics (P) Ltd., (2016) 1 SCC 348, argued that in order to bring a case for offence of cheating, it is not merely sufficient to prove that a false representation was made, but it is further necessary to prove that the representation was false to the knowledge of accused and was made in order to deceive complainant.

According to the ruling in Supreme Court case of Amit Kapoor v. Ramesh Chander, (2012) 9 SCC 460, in which certain principles in respect of exercise of jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC are laid down, one of the principles which hold significance in the present matter is following:

“…Court should apply the test as to whether the uncontroverted allegations as made from the record of the case and the documents submitted therewith prima facie establish the offence or not.”

Thus, in the present matter, High Court stated that in view of the above, a bare perusal of FIR as well as the charge sheet, it is apparent that foundation of criminal offence is laid against the applicant. Jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC should not be exercised to stifle or scuttle the legitimate prosecution. Court stated that in the present case, this is not the stage to quash the charge sheet.

Hence, Since, prima facie case is made out against the applicant, the Magistrate has rightly taken cognizance and summoned the applicant to face the trial in respect of the offences complained of against him. [Vijay Kumar Gupta v. State of Uttarakhand, Criminal Misc. Application No. (C-482) No. 1087 of 2016, decided on 18-12-2019]

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Kerala High Court: Alexander Thomas, J. disposed of a matter wherein a complaint was lodged against the petitioner accusing of committing rape and cheating.

In the present case, the complainant, a married lady whose divorce proceedings were still underway had advertised in the matrimonial column of a newspaper seeking a response from interested persons in respect of her marriage proposal. The petitioner responded to the same by agreeing to marry the complainant. Based on the assurance, both the parties shared an intimate relationship and indulged in sexual intercourse. However, later, the petitioner showed disinterest in the marriage proposal.

It has been stated by the complainant that the petitioner had taken Rs 2 lakhs from her and also her gold ornaments coming to 35 sovereigns and that she has been cheated and that she had given her consent to have sexual intercourse with the petitioner only on the basis of the assurance that he would marry her and that the petitioner has committed the abovesaid offences.

The complainant was filed under Section 376 of the Penal Code, 1860.

The Counsel representing the petitioner, V. John Mani, submitted that the complainant had suppressed facts from the petitioner by seeking marriage from the petitioner despite being a married woman at that point of time as the divorce proceedings were still underway and thus, it was the petitioner who had been cheated. Further, it was submitted that there was a falsification of facts when the complainant stated that the petitioner had borrowed money and gold ornaments, since, the complainant had extracted amount more than five lakhs from the petitioner.

In addition to the above, it was stated that the arrest and detention of the petitioner is absolutely illegal and ultra vires and that going by the admitted allegations in the FIS, the Police has committed a serious illegality in arresting the petitioner and that the arrest and detention of the petitioner is against the binding decisions of the Supreme Court and various High Courts in respect of the legal position relating to the lawful arrest of the accused persons in such cases.

The public prosecutor for the state, T.R. Renjith contended that the Police was given 3 days time for custodial interrogation of the petitioner, after his remand and that the petitioner has not co-operated with the investigating officer in respect of the recovery of the gold ornaments alleged to have been taken by the petitioner from the lady and that the petitioner is likely to threaten or intimidate the complainant, if he is let out on bail.

High Court upon perusal of the facts and circumstances of the case expressed its dissatisfaction with the police authorities arresting the petitioner for the period of time in a case wherein the complainant herself had requested for marriage proposals despite not being lawfully declared as divorced from the former marriage.

Adding to the above, Court stated that, “the petitioner has got a specific case that the lady has suppressed the fact that she was twice married and that though she had secured divorce in respect of her first marital relationship, divorce proceedings are still pending in respect of her second marital relationship, etc. The Police is duty-bound to investigate the crucial aspects as to whether the lady is twice married as alleged by the petitioner. If that be so, it is for the Police authorities to take serious note of such aspects which has been suppressed by the lady defacto complainant in her FIS.”

Thus, bail was granted to the petitioner, however with certain conditions of not committing any offence while on bail, not interacting with the complainant or tampering with evidence. [Prasanth Nelson v. State of Kerala, 2019 SCC OnLine Ker 2934, decided on 18-09-2019]

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Bombay High Court: S.S. Shinde, J. denied to quash the charges under Sections 376 and 420 IPC as prayed by the petitioner and further the Court ordered for a trial to take place on the basis of evidence recorded.

The present petition was filed to quash the charges against the petitioner in a case pending before the Sessions Court for Borivali Division at Dindoshi-Goregaon, Mumbai. The charges were framed under Sections 376 and 420 of the Penal Code, 1860.

Contentions by the Counsels:

Counsel for the petitioner, Samarth S. Karmarkar submitted that in the FIR that was lodged by Respondent 1 alleging offence under Section 420 IPC, there was no whisper about an allegation in respect to sexual assault. Further, it was stated that, the supplementary statement of Respondent 1 was the only thing in which allegations against the petitioner are made out that under the pretext and promise, he would marry Respondent 1, extracted huge amount from Respondent 1 and sexually exploited her.

Per contra, N.B. Patil, APP, submitted that overwhelming evidence had been collected by the Investigating Officer during the investigation and evidence of prosecutrix assumes importance which has to be treated on a high pedestal, therefore the petition may be rejected.

The High Court on perusal of grounds and submission of the parties opined that only way to resolve the controversy arising is by way of appreciating the material collected during the course of investigation by way of trial.

Therefore, the Court held that, material collected during the investigation has to be tested during the trial and also the allegations made in the FIR along with the ones in the supplementary statement. Relying on the Supreme Court Judgment in Anurag Soni v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2019 SCC OnLine SC 509, it was observed that no case is made out to invoke extraordinary writ jurisdiction and the prayer of the petitioner has to accede. Trial Court shall not get influenced by observations made during the course of the trial. [Vishal Ramnayan Singh v. XYZ, 2019 SCC OnLine Bom 1141, decided on 26-06-2019]

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Uttaranchal High Court: R. C. Khulbe, J. refused to grant a bail where the applicant was charged under Sections 420, 467, 468 and 471 of Penal Code, 1860.

The prosecution stated that a complaint was lodged against the applicant mentioning that he was posted as Deputy Manager in Kalawati Nyas Dharamshala, Dehradun. The applicant used to stay in Dharamshala of the complainant every month for a few days. Applicant disclosed to the colleague of the complainant that there were vacancies in Secretariat of Government of India, Delhi for the post of Junior Clerk. The son of the complainant was unemployed and applicant demanded Rs 3 lakhs for getting employed the son of the complainant and demanded Rs 50,000 as advance. Further, it was alleged by the prosecution that the said complainant gave the advance money on the very same day. In the same way, other relatives of the complainant believed the complainant and gave money to the applicant. The complainant was accused of the fraudulently received amount of Rs 20 lakhs from the complainant and his relatives on the pretext of providing job to the son of the complainant and other relatives of the complainant.

The applicant alleged that he was falsely implicated in the crime and hence bail should be granted to him.

The Court found that, FIR stated the commission of a heinous crime and hence no bail was granted to the applicant.[Shambhu Nath v. State of Uttarakhand, 2019 SCC OnLine Utt 541, decided on 27-06-2019]

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Kerala High Court: The Bench of R. Narayana Pisharadi, J. quashed criminal proceedings against a person accused of cheating a bank holding that the case against him would be an abuse of process of the Court.

Petitioner herein was a customer of Bank of Baroda for many years. He introduced accused’s 1 to 3 to the said bank to enable them to open an account therein. Subsequently, the accused used credit/purchase facility given to them by the bank and obtained approximately Rs 1 crore from it. It was alleged that the accused had hatched a conspiracy to cheat the bank and cause loss to it. A case was registered against the accused and the petitioner under Section 120B, and Sections 420 and 406 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code, 1860. The instant petition was filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 requesting quashing of proceedings against petitioner.

The Court noted that the only allegation against the petitioner was that he introduced accused to the bank to enable them to open an account. He did not falsely misrepresent the bank; there was no material indicating any transaction between the petitioner and other accused. No material was produced by the prosecution to prove that the introduction of accused to the bank, by the petitioner, was part of a conspiracy to cheat the bank. Therefore, no question of dishonest misappropriation of any amount by him arose.

It was held that it is a normal banking practice that a person who wants to open an account in a bank will have to get himself introduced by another account holder in the same bank. The mere act of introducing a person to a bank to enable such person to open an account in the bank, without anything more, does not attract the offence of cheating punishable under Section 420 IPC against the person who makes the introduction, even when the person introduced by him subsequently commits an act of cheating against the bank. Reliance in this regard was placed on Manoranjan Das v. State of Jharkhand, (2004) 12 SCC 90.

In view of the above, the petition was allowed. [K.J. Hubert v. Sub Inspector of Police, 2019 SCC OnLine Ker 1122, Order dated 04-04-2019]

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Kerala High Court: The Bench of T.V. Anil Kumar, J., while pronouncing an order quashed the criminal proceedings stating them to be of a civil dispute.

The facts of the case as presented in the present case are that, the prosecution case as against the petitioner is that, he after having obtained a mobile post-paid connection in his name, failed to discharge his liability for user charges for a period of 5 months. Allegation was that petitioner incurred a monetary liability of Rs 97,678 and after making a part payment of Rs 10, 580 he kept the balance in arrears. According to the prosecution, the default amounts to an offence of cheating punishable under Section 420 IPC.

Petitioner’s case is made out in the following manner, that the transaction in question is based on an agreement between the parties which turns the alleged liability to be purely of civil nature, due to which the petitioner sought consequential criminal proceedings to be quashed.

High Court on marshalling the materials on record, concluded by stating that, the transaction involved between the parties is of a civil dispute as a purported liability of the petitioner seems to have been arisen from breach of promise or agreement.

“Mere breach of trust or agreement will not by itself amount to a criminal offence under Section 420 IPC.”

Therefore, as the legal proposition does not match the materials on record as well as the allegations, the criminal proceedings require to be quashed in view of the above stated. [Abdul Hakkem v. State of Kerala, 2019 SCC OnLine Ker 974, Order dated 08-03-2019] 

Case BriefsHigh Courts

Jammu & Kashmir High Court: A Single Judge Bench of Sanjay Kumar Gupta, J., dismissed a bail petition filed by the petitioners under Section 497-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, seeking bail in a matter involving offences under Sections 420,467, 468, 471 of the Ranbir Penal Code and Section 5(2) of J&K Prevention of Corruption Act, 2006.

The main issue that arose before the court was whether the petitioners are entitled to get bail in a matter involving alleged offences of corruption and cheating.

The Court observed that the petitioners were alleged to have made back-dated appointments in lieu of money from the beneficiaries. The petitioners had made back-dated appointments and as such, it is an action which is covered under the category of cognizable offences. The appointments made by the petitioner were allegedly illegal, also some of the appointees were students and the others were running their own businesses. Another serious allegation that was leveled against the petitioners was that they have tampered with the records of daily wage workers and have replaced their names with the names of appointees who were given appointment by the petitioners. The Court relied upon the judgment of State of A.P. v. Bimal Krishna Kundu, (1997) 8 SCC 104, wherein it was held that arming an accused with a bail order, when serious allegations of corruption are leveled against him/her, would hamper the investigation and would also impede the prospects of unearthing all ramifications involved in the conspiracy. 

The Court held that the allegations leveled against the petitioners were quite serious in nature and hence granting them bail would not be the appropriate thing to do. Further, all the aspects of the matter require detailed investigation and for that purpose custodial interrogation is also required. Resultantly, the bail petition was dismissed.[Mohd. Kubir Malik v. State of J&K, 2018 SCC OnLine J&K 788, order dated 03-11-2018]