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Jit Vinayak Arolkar v. State of Goa and Ors.

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 31Decided 6 Jan 2025
Crl.A. No.-000393-000393 - 2024
Justice Abhay S. Oka · Justice Ujjal Bhuyan

Background

A dispute arose over ancestral property in Dhargalim Village, Goa, in which the 4th respondent had filed twelve civil suits in 2018 claiming an undivided ownership share he said he inherited from his father; the appellant contested this, claiming the property originally belonged to someone else. Two years after filing the civil suits, the 4th respondent lodged a police complaint alleging the appellant had sold portions of the property (through sale deeds) without the consent of all legal heirs, and an FIR for cheating under Section 420 IPC was registered. The Goa High Court dismissed the appellant's writ petition seeking to quash this FIR, leading to the present appeal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that even taking the complaint at face value, the essential ingredients of cheating were not made out: the appellant had never purported to act on behalf of the 4th respondent or to transfer the 4th respondent's rights in the property, so there was no deception of the complainant causing him harm. The Court also found it significant that the criminal complaint was filed only after a two-year gap following the civil suits, during which the complainant had suppressed the fact that injunction applications were already pending in those suits, indicating the criminal process was being used to pressure the other side in what was fundamentally a civil title dispute. The FIR and all consequent proceedings were quashed as against the appellant, though the Court clarified it was not deciding the underlying civil ownership dispute.

Lesson Learnt

A genuine dispute over property title or ownership is a civil matter, and criminal cheating charges cannot be used as a tool to pressure the other side in such a dispute. Courts will quash criminal proceedings that amount to an abuse of process dressed up as a criminal complaint.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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