In Krishna Bihari Prasad Sinha & Anr vs. State of Bihar & Anr., Ashish Patel vs. The State of Bihar, Ankit kumar @ Ankit Kumar Paswan vs. The State of Bihar, Md. Anwar @ Anwar vs. The State of Bihar, Madhurendra Prasad vs. Chairman cum Managing Director, Bihar State Power (Holding) Co. Ltd.., Bipin Kumar vs. The State of Bihar, Manoj Kumar vs. The State Of Bihar & Ors., Raj Kumar Singh vs. The State of Bihar, The Union of India vs. Prahlad Roy, Sumeshwar Prasad vs. The State of Bihar, Ramesh Prasad vs. The State of Bihar and Union of India through Senior Divisional Engineer, vs. M/s Mahnar Infratech Pvt. Ltd, High Court delivered 12 judgments on January 6, 2026.
In Krishna Bihari Prasad Sinha & Anr vs. State of Bihar & Anr, Justice Anil Kumar Sinha delivered a judgement wherein, he concluded:"Upon going through the allegations made in the complaint petition, the order taking cognizance and the materials on record, in my opinion, at best, the allegations give rise to civil dispute but the same has been given the colour of criminal offence. As such, permitting the prosecution to continue against the petitioners shall amount to abuse of the process of criminal court. 24. In order to prevent the abuse of the process of court and to secure the ends of justice, I deem it fit to quash the order taking cognizance against the petitioners, dated 31.08.2017. 25. Accordingly, the order, dated 31.08.2017, passed in Complaint Case No. 721(C) of 2017, by the learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate-XII, Patna, is hereby quashed so far as it relates to the petitioners.b26. In the result, this application is allowed. 27. There shall be no order as to costs."
The quashing application was filed for quashing the order, dated 31.08.2017, passed, in Complaint Case of 2017, by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate-XII, Patna, by which the District Court was taken cognizance for the offences punishable under Sections 406/420/467/468/ 471/387/120-B of the Indian Penal Code against the petitioners and one Nikhil Priyadarshi.
The prosecution case filed by the complainant Shoaib Hasan Chand, against accused persons, namely, Krishna Bihari Prasad Sinha, Nikhil Priyadarshi, Manish Priyadarshi, relatives and family members of Krishna Bihari Prasad Sinha, unknown anti-social friends of Nikhil and Manish Priyadarshi and Anjali Shrivastava, is that the complainant was the Managing Director of Aaha Planners and Developers Private Ltd. An unregistered development agreement was executed between the complainant and accused Nikhil Priyadarshi and Manish Priyadarshi, upon payment of Rs. one crore on October 13, 2016, regarding 40 Kathas of land of the accused persons, situated at Saguna More, Patna. Again, they demanded Rs. 30,00,000/- from the complainant- Opposite Party No. 2, which was paid to the accused persons through his cousin. Again after payment of Rs. 50,00,000/- in the first week of November, the accused Krishna Bihari Prasad Sinha handed over the documents of the land, in question. It stated that the complainant spent Rs. 50,00,000/- lakhs for development work towards the cost of construction of boundary wall at the site.
Afterwards, upon verification, the complainant found the documents of land, in question, to be forged, fabricated and fake. It was stated that a total amount of Rs.2,30,00,000/- was paid by the complainant to the accused persons. When the complainant demanded his money back, the friend of Nikhil Priyadarshi, namely, Gaurav, handed him a cheque of Rs. 450,000/- signed by one Prem Prakash, which was dishonored. Earlier also, a friend of Nikhil had given Rs.1,00,000/- and further assured the complainant that he would get back his money once Nikhil arrives.
The complainant also alleged that on March 13, 2017 friend of Nikhil, along with anti-social elements, took the complainant to Durga Mandir, where he was surrounded by armed persons and threatened to kill him and his family members if he deposed in the rape case or demanded his money back and also threatened to lodge a false rape case against him. When the complainant demanded his money again, the accused filed false case of demand of extortion against the complainant.
The complainant, in his statement on solemn affirmation, stated that Nikhil demanded Rs, 50,00,000/- on January 25, 2017, then he states that the demand of Rs. 50,00,000/- was made on 16 December, to which the complainant paid the amount after 2-4 days. The complainant got to know about the involvement of Nikhil, Manish and Krishna Bihari in the rape case of a minor girl through newspaper, dated December 20, 2016.
The counsel for the petitioners submitted that the impugned order has been passed mechanically without proper appreciation of the facts and settled principles of law. The continuation of the criminal proceedings against the petitioners would result in gross miscarriage of justice and abuse of the process of the Court as the dispute between the parties purely arose out of the development agreement, dated October 13, 2016. The consideration was clearly fixed as 50 percent of the total built-up area and the agreement neither contains any recital regarding payment of any cash amount nor there is any acknowledgment of the accused persons.
The complainant, acting with ulterior motive and due to extraneous considerations, has attempted to convert a purely civil dispute into a criminal case by making false, improbable and self-contradictory allegations of cash payments, including Rs.2,30,00,000/- and Rs. 50,00,000/-, which were improbable and unbelievable. The complainant wad inconsistent stand by first alleging payment of Rs. 50,00,000/- in the first week of November 2017 and thereafter, during enquiry, alleged the said payment to be made on December 16, 2017. The complainant further alleged that such payment was made in old currency, which has ceased to be legal tender after November 8, 2017, thereby rendering the allegation illegal, improbable and absurd.
In any case, the development agreement, dated 13.10.2016, does not mention payment of Rs. 1,00,00,000/- or any other amount in cash, completely falsifying the allegation made by the complainant in the complaint petition. Even if the entire complaint is taken at its face value, no ingredient of Sections 420 or Section 406 of the Indian Penal Code is attracted against the accused persons inasmuch as the accused persons admittedly have the right, title and interest over the land, in question and they were competent to enter into the agreement. Any failure to perform contractual obligations or nonregistration of the agreement at a later stage can at best give rise to a civil dispute and cannot constitute the offence of cheating or criminal breach of trust.
High Court's Division Bench of Justices Mohit Kumar Shah and Alok Kumar Pandey in Union of India vs. Prahlad Roy (2026) drew on Supreme Court's decision dated the settled principle of law by relying on a judgment rendered by the Supreme Court in The Director (Administration and Human Resources) KPTCL & Ors. vs. C.P. Mundinamani & Ors, reported in (2023) 14 SCC 411, wherein it has been held that merely because the government servant retired on the very next day, the same cannot be a ground to deny him benefit of annual increment and in such cases, the government employee is entitled to grant of one annual increment which he had earned on the last day of his service for rendering his services preceding one year from the date of retirement with good behaviour and efficiency. It also referred to decision dated February 20, 2025 in Union of India & Anr. vs. M. Siddaraj, in Miscellaneous Application Diary No. 2400 of 2024 in Civil Appeal No. 3933 of 2023 other analogous cases to submit that the judgment dated April 11, 2023 had though been modified a bit, nonetheless the sole respondent would be entitled to one increment which shall be payable on and after May 1, 2023.
The High Court had delivered only one judgement on January 5, 2026 in Krishna Bihari Prasad Sinha & Anr vs. State of Bihar & Anr.
No comments:
Post a Comment