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Kunti vs. The State of Uttar Pradesh

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 480Decided 3 May 2023
Criminal Appeal No. 1380 of 2023
Krishna Murari · Sanjay Karol

Background

The appellants had agreed in 2008 to sell agricultural land to the second respondent for about Rs.10.8 lakh, receiving a substantial advance, but the sale deed was never executed despite the buyer repeatedly extending the deadline. After the appellants tried to sell the land to someone else, the buyer got an FIR registered against them for cheating, forgery and related offences under the Indian Penal Code. The Allahabad High Court refused to quash this FIR, holding that the appellants had an alternative civil remedy but declining to treat the matter as purely civil, prompting this appeal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court reiterated the settled principle that a mere breach of contract does not amount to the criminal offence of cheating unless dishonest or fraudulent intention is shown to have existed right from the start of the transaction. Examining the record, it found the entire dispute was fundamentally about the sale and non-execution of a registered agreement to sell, a civil property dispute, with nothing to show fraudulent intent at the inception of the deal. Cautioning against giving an unjustified "criminal hue" to disputes that are essentially civil in nature, the Court quashed the FIR and the criminal proceedings, while clarifying that this would not affect the buyer's right to pursue any civil remedies available to him in law.

Lesson Learnt

Criminal law cannot be used as a shortcut to enforce a civil contract or pressure the other party: a failed property deal or broken business promise is a civil wrong unless fraud or dishonest intent existed from the very beginning of the transaction.

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

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