Behari Lal and Another vs Ramesh Chandra Sharma

M.B. Farooqi, J.—This is an application u/s 482 Code of Criminal Procedure for quashing the proceedings in a criminal complaint u/s 420 IPC filed by the opposite party against the applicants in the court of Special Judicial Magistrate, Meerut.

The case set out in the complaint are like this. The applicant placed an order with the opposite party for the supply of tractor accessories. The opposite party supplied the goods. In lieu of price the applicants issued a cheque for Rs. 5618/-. Subsequently the applicants discovered that some of the goods supplied were defective. They informed the opposite party. Along side they ordered the Bank to stop payment. Accordingly the bank dishonoured the cheque and refused payment to the opposite party.

On these facts no cheating can be inferred. Criminal intention is the gist of the offence of cheating. Merely because the applicants stopped the payment, it cannot be said that they had a criminal intention. Such intention could be inferred if it had appeared from their circumstances that they did not expect the cheque to be cashed in the usual course. No such circumstance has been mentioned in the complaint. In the given circumstances all that can be said is that the applicants are guilty of breach of promise. So viewed, the complaint discloses a dispute purely of a civil nature. Simply because it has been stated in the complaint that the applicants had a criminal intention right from the beginning, it would not convert the dispute into one of a criminal nature. In this view, the proceedings taken on the complaint in the trial court are unsustainable in law or rather constitute an abuse of the process of the Court and ought to be quashed.

In the result, this application is allowed and the impugned proceedings are quashed.