Gaurav Bagga Vs State of Chhattisgarh

2 - Vikram Shadangi S/o Shri Ak Shadangi Aged About 38 Years R/o Opposite Jain Mandir, Shyam Nagar, District – Raipur, Chhattisgarh. 3 - The Superintendent Of Police District – Raipur, Chhattisgarh.

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... Respondent(s)

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For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Sharad Mishra, Advocate For Respondent(s) : Ms. Soumya Sharma, Panel Lawyer.

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Hon'ble Shri Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice

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Hon'ble Shri Bibhu Datta Guru , Judge

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Judgment on Board

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Per Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice

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08.10.2025

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Heard Mr. Sharad Mishra, learned counsel for the petitioner. Also

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heard Ms. Soumya Sharma, learned Panel Lawyer for respondent / State.

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Though the respondent No.2 was represented by Mr. Rishi Kumar Jha and Mrs. Smita Jha, Advocates, but when the matter is called out for hearing, not appeared on behalf of respondent No.2 to contest the present matter. Moreover, no return has been filed by the respondent No.2 till date

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Considering the fact that the matter pertains to the year 2021, this Court proceeds to hear finally.

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The petitioner has filed this petition with the following prayer:

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“(i) That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to call for the records pertaining to the case of the Petitioner.

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(ii) That, this Hon'ble Court may kindly be please to pass an appropriate order quashing the impugned F.I.R. dated 20-12-2021 bearing Crime No. 665/2021 registered at Respondent No. 1- Police Station against the present Petitioner, in the interest of justice.

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(iii) That, any other relief which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit in the interest of justice, may kindly be awarded.”

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The case of the prosecution, as unfolded in the complaint lodged by Respondent No. 2- Shri Vikram Shadangi, is that the petitioner had taken on rent a four-wheeler, Maruti Suzuki Brezza bearing Registration No. CG 04 LU 8883, belonging to the Complainant,

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on 10.10.2018 for a period of two months at the rate of Rs. 50,000/- per month. It is alleged that upon expiry of the rental period, the petitioner failed to return the said vehicle and continued to keep it in his possession without the consent of the complainant. It is further the case of the prosecution that despite repeated requests by the complainant, the petitioner neither returned the vehicle nor made any payment towards its use. The complainant has also alleged that whenever he demanded the return of the vehicle, the petitioner used to abuse and threaten him with dire consequences, and that upon inquiry, he came to know that the petitioner had allegedly mortgaged the said vehicle to a third person. On the basis of the said complaint, the Police registered FIR No. 665/2021 at respondent No. 1 Police Station for the offence punishable under Section 406 of the Indian Penal Code, alleging that the petitioner had committed criminal breach of trust in respect of the complainant’s property.

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Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that, the petitioner is a law-abiding citizen who has been falsely implicated in the present case by respondent No. 2 with mala fide intentions and ulterior motives. It is urged that the allegations contained in the impugned FIR dated 20.12.2021, even if taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, do not constitute any offence punishable under Section 406 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. The dispute, in substance, is of civil nature relating to monetary transactions

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between the parties. Respondent No. 2, having failed to discharge his financial liability of Rs. 1,50,000/- borrowed from the petitioner, has deliberately resorted to criminal proceedings to pressurize the petitioner and to evade repayment of the said amount. It is further contended that the FIR has been lodged after an unexplained and inordinate delay of more than three years from the alleged incident of 2018, which casts serious doubt on the authenticity and bona fides of the complaint.

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It is further submitted that the ingredients of criminal breach of trust under Section 406 IPC are wholly missing in the present case. To attract the said provision, there must be clear entrustment of property and subsequent dishonest misappropriation by the accused. In the present matter, there is no document or agreement evidencing any entrustment of the alleged vehicle to the petitioner. On the contrary, as per the official record obtained from the RTO, Chhattisgarh, the vehicle bearing registration No. CG 04 LU 8883 is a privately registered personal vehicle of respondent No. 2, which does not have any commercial or taxi permit. Thus, the prosecution’s version that the vehicle was “rented” to the petitioner at Rs. 50,000/- per month is not only improbable but also legally impermissible. Such allegations, based on a non-existent oral arrangement and unsupported by any document, cannot give rise to any criminal liability.

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Learned counsel further submits that the respondent police acted

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in a mechanical and arbitrary manner in registering FIR No. 665/2021 without conducting any preliminary verification of the complaint or ascertaining the truthfulness of the allegations. The hasty registration of the FIR, without examining the civil nature of the dispute or the long delay in lodging it, demonstrates complete non-application of mind and bias on the part of the police authorities. The petitioner, instead of being the offender, is in fact the victim of cheating and harassment at the hands of respondent No. 2, who has misused the criminal justice system to settle a personal score and to avoid repayment of his lawful dues.

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It is also argued that continuation of the criminal proceedings in the present circumstances would be nothing but an abuse of the process of law and would result in grave miscarriage of justice. Learned counsel places reliance on the settled legal position laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal (1992 Supp (1) SCC 335) , G. Sagar Suri v. State of U.P. (2000) 2 SCC 636 , and Indian Oil Corporation v. NEPC India Ltd. (2006) 6 SCC 736 , wherein it has been consistently held that when the allegations in the FIR, even if accepted in their entirety, disclose only a civil dispute and do not constitute a criminal offence, the FIR is liable to be quashed in exercise of inherent powers under Section 482 CrPC. It is thus prayed that the impugned FIR dated 20.12.2021, registered as Crime No. 665/2021 under Section 406 IPC, along with all consequential

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proceedings, be quashed to prevent abuse of process of law and to secure the ends of justice.

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Learned State counsel would submit that considering the material available on record, it cannot be held that no prima facie case against the petitioner for offence punishable under Sections 406 of the IPC is made out. He would further submit that jurisdiction of this Court under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (for short, ‘BNSS’) is extremely limited as FIR cannot be quashed particularly when there is sufficient material available on record.

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On a pointed query being made to the learned State counsel as to whether the investigation of the case has been concluded or not, he states that the same is pending till date.

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We have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the documents appended with this petition.

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The Supreme Court in the matter of State of Haryana and others v. Bhajan Lal and others, 1992 Supp (1) SCC 335 laid down the principles of law relating to the exercise of extraordinary power under Article 226 of the Constitution of India to quash the first information report and it has been held that such power can be exercised either to prevent abuse of the process of any court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice.

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In Manoj Kumar Sharma and others v. State of

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Chhattisgarh and others, ( 2016) 9 SCC 1 , the Hon’ble Supreme Court affirmed that High Courts have the inherent power to quash criminal proceedings, including those related to noncompoundable offenses, to prevent the abuse of court process and to serve the ends of justice, particularly when the allegations are absurd, inherently improbable, or when there is evidence of malicious intent or the dispute is essentially private and amicable.

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In the matter of Paramjeet Batra v. State of Uttarakhand, (2013) 11 SCC 673 , the Supreme Court recognized that although the inherent powers of a High Court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure should be exercised sparingly, yet the High Court must not hesitate in quashing such criminal proceedings which are essentially of a civil nature. It was held as under:

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“12. While exercising its jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code the High Court has to be cautious. This power is to be used sparingly and only for the purpose of preventing abuse of the process of any court or otherwise to secure ends of justice. Whether a complaint discloses a criminal offence or not depends upon the nature of facts alleged therein. Whether essential ingredients of criminal offence are present or not has to be judged by the High Court. A complaint disclosing civil transactions may also have a criminal texture. But the High Court must see whether a dispute which is essentially of a civil nature is given a cloak of criminal offence. In such a situation, if a civil remedy is available and is, in fact, adopted as has

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happened in this case, the High Court should not hesitate to quash the criminal proceedings to prevent abuse of process of the court.”

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(emphasis supplied)

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Relying upon the decision in Paramjeet Batra (supra), the Supreme Court in Randheer Singh v. State of U.P., (2021) 14 SCC 626 , observed that criminal proceedings cannot be taken recourse to as a weapon of harassment. In Usha Chakraborty & Anr. v. State of West Bengal & Anr., 2023 SCC OnLine SC 90 , relying upon Paramjeet Batra (supra) it was again held that where a dispute which is essentially of a civil nature, is given a cloak of a criminal offence, then such disputes can be quashed, by exercising the inherent powers under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

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Reverting to the facts of the present case and having heard learned counsel for the petitioner and perused the record, this Court finds that the allegations made in the impugned FIR dated 20.12.2021 do not disclose the essential ingredients of the offence under Section 406 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. The case of the prosecution, even if taken at its face value, reveals that the dispute between the parties essentially arises out of a private monetary transaction and alleged non-return of a vehicle which was claimed to have been given on rent without any written or valid agreement. The material on record shows that the vehicle

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bearing registration No. CG 04 LU 8883 is a privately registered personal vehicle of respondent No. 2, not a commercial or taxi vehicle. Thus, the allegation that the same was rented to the petitioner for Rs. 50,000/- per month appears highly improbable and unsupported by any evidence.

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It is a settled principle that to constitute an offence of criminal breach of trust, there must be entrustment of property and subsequent dishonest misappropriation thereof. In the present case, there is no document or evidence suggesting any entrustment or any act on the part of the petitioner which can be termed as dishonest. Even if the entire FIR is accepted as true, at best, it gives rise to a civil dispute regarding recovery of money or possession of a vehicle, for which appropriate civil remedies are available to the complainant. Criminal prosecution in such a case is clearly unwarranted and amounts to misuse of the criminal justice system.

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It is also significant to note that, though the FIR was registered in December 2021, the charge-sheet has not been filed till date, despite lapse of a considerable period of time. Such inaction on the part of the investigating agency reinforces the inference that there is no material against the petitioner to sustain the allegations. The unexplained delay in investigation, coupled with the absence of concrete evidence, clearly indicates that the FIR was registered in a mechanical manner without application of

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mind and without conducting any preliminary verification of the complaint.

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The Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter of Bhajan lal (Supra), G. Sagar Suri (Supra), and Indian Oil Corporation (supra), has categorically held that where the allegations in an FIR do not disclose the commission of a cognizable offence and are essentially of a civil nature, continuation of such proceedings would be an abuse of the process of law and should be quashed. Applying these settled principles to the present facts, this Court finds that the continuation of the criminal proceedings against the petitioner, in the absence of any charge-sheet even after four years, would serve no useful purpose and would result only in harassment and miscarriage of justice.

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In view of the detailed discussion, and for the reasons recorded in the foregoing paragraphs, this Court is of the considered view that the allegations levelled in the impugned FIR do not constitute any cognizable offence and that the continuation of the criminal proceedings against the petitioner would amount to an abuse of the process of law. Accordingly, the present petition filed by the petitioner under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. deserves to be and is hereby allowed .

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Consequently, the FIR bearing Crime No. 665/2021, registered at Respondent No. 1 – Police Station- Civil Lines, District- Raipur for the alleged offence punishable under Section 406 of the Indian

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Penal Code, 1860, as well as all consequential proceedings arising therefrom, are hereby quashed and set aside. It is further directed that no coercive action shall be taken against the petitioner in connection with the aforesaid FIR.

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Sd/- Sd/- (Bibhu Datta Guru) (Ramesh Sinha ) Judge Chief Justice

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Manpreet

Gaurav Bagga v. State of Chhattisgarh

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Gaurav Bagga v. State of Chhattisgarh

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