TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2019 (2) TMI 2064
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.... May 2002. They moved to the United States of America and a child was born to them in 2009. Savitha was involved in a car accident on 5 February 2010 and proceedings were initiated against her abroad. It is alleged by the appellants that fearing the attachment of their son's property in the proceedings, an amount of Rs 20 lakhs was transferred by Rajiv to the bank account of the first respondent on 17 February 2010. Following a breakdown in marital relations, Savitha and Rajiv have been living separately since October 2010. Multiple rounds of litigation ensued in various courts. 4 Savitha filed a private complaint [PCR No. 3418 of 2012; FIR No. 18 of 2012 registered on 23 February 2012] against her husband Rajiv and the appellants alleging the commission of various offences, including criminal intimidation and a demand for dowry. The High Court of Karnataka quashed the proceeding against appellant No. 2. On 14 February 2013, Rajiv filed a civil suit for recovery of money [O. S. No. 1305 of 2013] against the first respondent for the return of the money allegedly transferred by him into her bank account. The suit is pending. Two divorce petitions instituted by Savita have been....
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....fore this Court is whether the High Court has erred in rejecting the plea of the appellants for quashing the criminal proceedings against them. The question at the heart of the present dispute is whether the averments in the complaint disclose the ingredients necessary to constitute an offence under the Penal Code. 10 Section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure saves the inherent power of the High Court to make orders necessary to secure the ends of justice. In Indian Oil Corpn. v NEPC India Ltd. [(2006) 6 SCC 736], a two judge Bench of this Court reviewed the precedents on the exercise of jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 and formulated guiding principles in the following terms: "12. ... (i) A complaint can be quashed where the allegations made in the complaint, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, do not prima facie constitute any offence or make out the case alleged against the accused. For this purpose, the complaint has to be examined as a whole, but without examining the merits of the allegations. Neither a detailed inquiry nor a meticulous analysis of the material nor an assessment of the reliabilit....
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....h any dominion over property, dishonestly misappropriates or converts to his own use that property, or dishonestly uses or disposes of that property in violation of any direction of law prescribing the mode in which such trust is to be discharged, or of any legal contract, express or implied, which he has made touching the discharge of such trust, or willfully suffers any other person so to do, commits "criminal breach of trust". A careful reading of Section 405 shows that the ingredients of a criminal breach of trust are as follows: i) A person should have been entrusted with property, or entrusted with dominion over property; ii) That person should dishonestly misappropriate or convert to their own use that property, or dishonestly use or dispose of that property or willfully suffer any other person to do so; and iii) That such misappropriation, conversion, use or disposal should be in violation of any direction of law prescribing the mode in which such trust is to be discharged, or of any legal contract which the person has made, touching the discharge of such trust. Entrustment is an essential ingredient of the offence. A person who dishonestly misappropriates property ....
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....) A person must commit the offence of cheating under Section 415; and ii) The person cheated must be dishonestly induced to (a) deliver property to any person; or (b) make, alter or destroy valuable security or anything signed or sealed and capable of being converted into valuable security. Cheating is an essential ingredient for an act to constitute an offence under Section 420. 16 A court exercising its inherent jurisdiction must examine if on their face, the averments made in the complaint constitute the ingredients necessary for the offence. The relevant extract of the complaint filed by the first respondent is extracted below: "The accused person's son Mr. Rajiv Vijayasarathy Ratnam started to transfer all his monies to different accounts and also transferred some monies belonging to him in the US to his parents accounts in Bangalore, India and he also pleaded his wife i.e. Complainant's daughter that he also wanted to divert some funds unto Complainant's account in Bangalore...That Rajiv Vijayasarathy Ratnam diverted some of his monies to Accused No. 1 and 2 and the Complainant... It is further pertinent to mention that the accident occurred on 05.02.2010 and mone....
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....duced the first respondent to deliver any property to them. Cheating is an essential ingredient to an offence under Section 420 of the Penal Code. The ingredient necessary to constitute the offence of cheating is not made out from the face of the complaint and consequently, no offence under Section 420 is made out. 19 In Binod Kumar v State of Bihar [(2014) 10 SCC 663] certain amounts were due and payable to a contract worker. When the amount due was not paid due to a termination of the contract, the worker filed a criminal case against the appellant for criminal breach of trust. The appellants' petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for quashing was dismissed by the High Court. A two judge Bench of this Court examined the ingredients of the offence and whether the complaint on its face disclosed the commission of any offence. This Court quashed the criminal proceedings holding thus: "14. At this stage, we are only concerned with the question whether the averments in the complaint taken at their face value make out the ingredients of criminal offence or not. 18. In the present case, looking at the allegations in the complaint on the face of it, we find th....
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....he body of his complaint all the ingredients of the offence he is alleging. Nor is it necessary that the complainant should state in so many words that the intention of the accused was dishonest or fraudulent. Splitting up of the definition into different components of the offence to make a meticulous scrutiny, whether all the ingredients have been precisely spelled out in the complaint, is not the need at this stage. If factual foundation for the offence has been laid in the complaint the court should not hasten to quash criminal proceedings during investigation stage merely on the premise that one or two ingredients have not been stated with details..." The decision does not advance the submission of the first respondent. As we have noted above, the complaint in the present case is bereft of the basic facts necessary to constitute the offences alleged under Sections 405, 406, 415 and 420 of the Penal Code. 22 Learned Senior Counsel for the appellant contended that the actions of the first respondent constitute an abuse of process of the court. It is contended that the present dispute is of a civil nature and the first respondent has attempted to cloak it with a criminal flavor ....