The Calcutta High Court has set aside criminal proceedings against a man accused of cheating a complainant of Rs 1.60 crore, ruling that criminal prosecution cannot be used as a coercive mechanism to recover money under private contractual agreements.
Court Ruling On Civil Liability
Issuing the order on August 5, Justice Rai Chattopadhyay held that subjecting the accused to a full criminal trial for a matter arising from a private contract constituted a manifest abuse of the legal process. The court observed that criminal law is designed to punish public wrongs affecting society rather than serve as a tool for enforcing civil debt recovery. Allowing such prosecutions to proceed, the judge added, blurs the distinction between civil liability and criminal culpability.
Discrepancies In Financial Claims
The case stems from a First Information Report (FIR) filed on July 25, 2023, in which the complainant accused the man of posing as a landowner and agreeing to sell a plot of land for Rs 1.60 crore. According to the complaint, the man accepted the money but failed to execute the transfer documents, leading to allegations of cheating and criminal breach of trust.
Subsequent investigations, however, yielded no evidence that the alleged Rs 1.60 crore had been paid. The charge sheet filed in the case recorded that only Rs 40 lakh had been transferred into the bank account of the accused. Additionally, investigators documented the existence of a written loan agreement signed by both parties.
Contractual Nature Of Dispute
The court noted that the written loan agreement established a borrower-lender relationship between the parties. Justice Chattopadhyay stated that even if the accused failed to repay the balance of the loan, such a failure does not by itself constitute a criminal offense, leading the court to quash the FIR and all connected proceedings.
Defense advocates Dr. Arjun Chowdhury and Pratyusha Dutta Chowdhury argued that the allegations were false and that the transaction was purely civil in nature. Counsel informed the court that a friendly loan agreement of Rs 40 lakh was signed on November 20, 2019, and that the accused had already repaid Rs 12 lakh with plans to refund the remaining sum shortly.
Advocates Avrojyoti Das, Rajyashree Ghosh, and Panchali Deb Sikder represented the state in the proceedings.
