Over-Zealous Litigants Trying To Settle Civil Disputes By Misusing Police Machinery: Supreme Court Quashes FIR

The appeals before the Apex Court were filed by the appellants arraigned as accused in a criminal case registered under Sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

The Division Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta said, “This Court has time and again come down heavily on the attempts of the over-zealous litigants in trying to settle their civil disputes by misusing the police machinery and resorting to criminal proceedings. A gainful reference in this regard may be made to a decision of three-judge bench of this Court in Inder Mohan Goswami v. State of Uttaranchal, which involved a contractual dispute among the parties wherein a part payment had been made to the complainant by the accused. This Court, while exercising jurisdiction under Article 136 of the Constitution of India, quashed the FIR/criminal proceedings.”

Senior Advocate K Parameshwar represented the Appellants while AOR Aaditya Aniruddha Pande represented the Respondents.

Factual Background

The complainant alleged that he was a professional Contractor involved in a variety of construction works. MIDC, Walunj, Aurangabad issued a tender in the year 2009-2010, for the construction of a sewerage water filter plant under built, operate and transfer basis (B.O.T.) at a Plot. SWD Infra had assigned a sub-contract to the complainant’s company by the name of Sai Group, and an agreement was entered into in this regard. The complainant claimed that the payment for the work under the sub-contract of SWD Infra was agreed to be made to the complainant directly, under the instructions given by the Directors of BUL (appellants herein) to SWD Infra.

The complainant raised a claim for the due amount for the work done. On receiving assurances, the complainant resumed the work. He submitted the bills towards work done via email to the Project Manager of BUL (accused 3). After receiving false assurances, the complainant ended up selling his assets to make payment towards the material and labour costs. The complainant claimed to have been cheated of a total amount of Rs 5,11,69,398 at the hands of the accused persons. Based on this complaint, the impugned FIR came to be registered. Both the quashing as well as the criminal petition came to be dismissed. Aggrieved thereby, the accused appellants approached the Apex Court.

Reasoning

The Bench noted that the High Court had observed that the company of the appellants had employed peculiar modus operandi whereby they obtained work orders from various Government institutions and authorities and took advance amounts in the name of investment for the institution and by using the record of the project, they raised huge loans from the banks and financial institutions. On this aspect, the Bench said, “The conclusions of the High Court are prima facie based on sheer conjectures regarding the appellants having misused the acquired work orders for taking loan from various financial institutions as well as taking advances from the MIDC.”

Reference was made to the report under Section 173(2) of CrPC placed on record by the respondent-State, which presented an entirely different picture. In this report, there was no reference to the accused appellants having misused the contracts/tenders awarded to them for procuring undue gain from any other financial institutions, viz., banks, etc. or from the MIDC itself. The report, under Section 173(2) of CrPC, took note of the directions given by the High Court. The investigation of the FIR continued for almost ten years, but not a shred of evidence was collected by the Investigating Officer to support or fortify the conclusion of the High Court regarding financial bungling by the appellants, other than the disputed transaction with the complainant.

“Apparently thus, the admitted facts as available on record reveal that the complainant’s claim is for reimbursement of the remaining amount claimed by him towards the works executed in furtherance of a contract. The allegations, made in the complaint, present a dispute which is purely commercial and civil in nature. It seems that the complainant has contrived to somehow or the other, involve the police machinery to act as recovery agents on his behalf. The complaint, on the face of record, did not disclose any offence whatsoever and no FIR should have been registered based thereupon”, it added. The Bench also found that ex facie, the allegations of forging the signatures of the Engineers, employed by the complainant, were not substantiated from the investigation conducted in the case.

“In wake of the above discussion, we are of the firm view that allowing the proceedings of the impugned-FIR and the chargesheet filed as a culmination of the investigation, would be nothing short of a gross abuse of process of the Court”, it said while allowing the appeal and quashing the FIR.

Cause Title: Shrichand Rajaram Kukreja & Anr. v. The State of Maharashtra & Anr. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 794)

Appearance

Appellants: Senior Advocate K Parameshwar, Advocates Abhishek Bharti, Aarti Mahto, AOR Balaji Srinivasan, Advocate Shreenivas Patil

Respondent: AOR Aaditya Aniruddha Pande,Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Advocates Bharat Bagla, Sourav Singh, Aditya Krishna, Adarsh Dubey, Shakul R. Ghatole, Sambhaji Gawande, Vatsalya Vigya

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