Mr. Naved Yar Khan vs Mr. Haroon Yusuf

Shiv Narayan Dhingra, J.—By this petition, the Petitioner has assailed order dated 23rd October, 2010 whereby in a complaint made by the Petitioner, the Respondent was summoned by the Court u/s 177 IPC and u/s 191/193 IPC. The Petitioner is aggrieved by the order of the court below on the ground that the learned ACMM should have summoned the Respondent u/s 420 IPC.

The complainant made complaint against the Respondent that Respondent filed a false affidavit before the Returning Officer at the time of filing his nomination papers. In the affidavit he deposed that no criminal case was pending against him in which cognizance was taken by the Court whereas in fact a criminal complaint was pending against the Respondent for offence u/s 500 IPC at Tis Hazari Court. The contention of the Petitioner was that by filing this false affidavit, the Respondent committed offence of cheating. However, the learned ACMM came to the conclusion that the ingredients of offence of cheating were not made out as there was no averment that complainant or any other person casted his vote in favour of the accused because of inducement given by accused by filing a false affidavit before the Returning Officer.

The Petitioner appeared in person and argued that ingredients of Section 420 IPC were made out and the trial Court should have been summoned the Respondents u/s 420 IPC as well.

In order to attract Section 420 IPC, it is necessary that there should be a victim of cheating who has been fraudulently or dishonestly induced to delivery any property. Assuming that the vote was a valuable property, there has to be a victim to depose that he casted his vote because of the inducement given by the Respondent. In absence of a victim of the cheating, who has been dishonestly induced to cast the vote or to delivery any other property or valuable security, summoning u/s 415/420 IPC could not have been done by the trial Court. In the present case, the Petitioner has not named even one single person as the victim of this cheating, neither evidence adduced by the Petitioner shows that any of the voter casted vote in favour of the Respondent because of the alleged false affidavit, showing that Respondent was not facing trial in any criminal case. I find no force in this petition. The petition is hereby dismissed. No orders as to cost.