Chattisgarh High Court

Mohammad Kamran vs State Of Chhattisgarh on 17 October, 2022

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                                                                  NAFR

            HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH, BILASPUR

                       MCRCA No.1254 of 2022

    Jaydeep Chitlangia S/o Late Shri Purshottam Das Chitlangia Aged
     About 59 Years R/o 12-B, Judges Colony, Alipur, Kolkata (West
     Bengal).

                                                          ---- Applicant

                               Versus

    State Of Chhattisgarh Through Station House Officer, Police Station
     Civil Lines, Bilaspur, District Bilaspur Chhattisgarh

                                                       ---- Respondent

MCRCA No.1344 of 2022

 Mohammad Kamran S/o Shri Mohammad Anwar Aged About 34 Years R/o 113, Park Street Kolkata, West Bengal

---- Applicant

Versus

 State Of Chhattisgarh Through Station House Officer, Police Station Civil Lines, District Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh

---- Respondent

MCRCA No.1347 of 2022

 Dharminder Choudhary S/o Shri Vijay Kumar Choudhary Aged About 45 Years R/o Vrindawan Nagar Nagpur Road, District Chandrapur, Maharashtra

---- Applicant

Versus

 State Of Chhattisgarh Through Station House Officer, Police Station Civil Lines, District : Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh

---- Respondent

For Applicants Ms. Fouzia Mirza, Senior Adv. with Mr. Navin Shukla, Adv. in MCRCA No.1344 & 1347 of 2022 and Mr. Manoj Paranjpe, Adv. in MCRCA No.1254/2022

For Respondent-State Mr. Ayaz Naved, GA

For Respondent-Objector Mr. Ashish Shrivastava, Senior Advocate with Mr. Abhishek Verma, Advocate

Hon'ble Justice Smt. Rajani Dubey

Order on Board

17/10/2022

1. The applicants have preferred these first bail applications under

Section 438 of Cr.P.C., as they are apprehending their arrest in

connection with Crime No.683/2022, registered at Police Station

Civil Lines, District Bilaspur (C.G.) for the offence punishable under

Sections 420 & 120-B read with Section 34 of IPC.

2. The prosecution story, in brief, is that the complainant Mohd. Firoz

lodged a written report stating therein that he is involved in the

business of sale/purchase of scraps and owns a company namely

Taj Traders, therefore, he entered into an agreement with Madhya

Bharat Paper Mill Ltd., the owner of which is Mr. Jaydeep

Chitlangia, who is one of the accused persons and other accused

are the directors of the said company, on 26.10.2021 for sale of

scraps and other materials for total sale consideration of Rs.7

Crores, out of which 2,65,00,000/- was already paid to the said

company by the complainant. The agreement was executed for a

period of 6 months and all the works were required to be done

within the said period. It is alleged that without terminating the

earlier contract, the applicants executed another agreement with

Ameer Enterprises on 17.01.2022 for sale of scraped materials, the

owner of which is Mr. Rafique Menon, thereby the applicants have

cheated the complainant and have failed to act as per agreement.

3. Learned Senior counsel and counsel appearing for the applicants in

all the cases jointly submit that the applicants are innocent and

have been falsely implicated in the present case. If all the

allegations are taken as it is, then also no offence of cheating is

made out against the applicants. The applicants have not caused

any lawful loss to the complainant for the offence punishable under

Section 420 of IPC. Both the parties had entered into agreement on

29.06.2021 and in the said agreement, it is clearly stated that all

amount would be paid within 6 months of the agreement, but the

complainant only paid Rs.2,65,00,000/- to the applicants and did

not perform the remaining part of the contract. The dispute between

the parties is purely of a civil nature, but the complainant tried to

convert it into a criminal dispute. There is no criminality on the part

of the applicants. The averments in the FIR have been made only

to foist criminal liability upon the applicants by converting a purely

civil dispute into a criminal act. They further submit that the

applicants have no active role in the said incident narrated by the

complainant. The notice was also sent to the complainant on

15.06.2022 for termination of contract and the applicants are also

ready to return the advance amount deposited by the complainant

and infact they have tried to return the amount to the complainant

but he has refused to accept the same. The applicants have

already been granted ad interim bail by the Coordinate Bench of

this Court vide order dated 30.09.2022. Apart from it, the interim

protection is also there in favour of the applicants' company

Madhya Bharat Paper Mill by the Coordinate Bench of this Court

vide order dated 06.09.2022 in WPCr No.628/2022. Therefore,

under these circumstances, the applicants may kindly be released

on anticipatory bail and the applicants are ready to abide by all the

norms and conditions as foisted by this Court while granting bail to

them. Learned counsel have placed their reliance on the judgments

rendered by the Supreme Court in the matters of Sumedh Singh

Saini vs State of Punjab and another 1 and Uma Shankar

Gopalika vs State of Bihar and another 2 and in the matter of

Pawan Kumar Ajmera and others vs State of Madhya Pradesh

and others3 rendered by the M.P. High Court.

4. On the other hand, learned Senior counsel appearing for the

objector vehemently opposes the bail application of the applicants

and submits that according to the agreement, the total sale

consideration of Rs.7 Crores, as agreed between the parties, and

out of which the complainant/objector had already paid

Rs.2,65,00,000/- to the applicants, but despite there being a legal

and valid contract between the objector and the applicants, the

applicants have executed another agreement with Ameer

Enterprises on 17.01.2022 without termination of first agreement,

thereby they have committed the breach of the contract. It is also

pointed out by the learned Senior counsel that in the second

agreement, the GST number of M.A. Builders and Madhya Bharat

Paper Mill is the same, thus it is unambiguous from all the

documents that the applicants' intention from the very inception

was to cheat the complainant, thus the present does not come

under the purview of a civil dispute and if the allegations disclose

the civil dispute, the same by itself may not be a ground to hold that

the criminal proceedings should not be allowed to continue.

Learned counsel has placed his reliance on the judgments

rendered by the Supreme Court in the matters of K. Jagadish vs

Udaya Kumar G.S. and another 4 and Prem Shankar Prasad vs

State of Bihar and another5.

1    2020 SCC Online SC 986
2    (2005) 10 SCC 336
3    2020 LawSuit (M.P.) 780
4    (2020) 14 SCC 552
5    2021 SCC Online SC 955

5. Learned State counsel opposes the bail application.

6. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the case diary

as well as the material available on record.

7. The Hon'ble Apex Court in the matter of Uma Shankar Gopalika

(supra) has held in para 6 as under:-

"6. It is well settled that every breach of contract would not give rise to an offence of cheating and only in those cases breach of contract would amount to cheating where there was any deception played at the very inception. If the intention to cheat has developed later on, the same cannot amount to cheating, hi the present case it has nowhere been stated that at the very inception there was any intention on behalf of the accused persons to cheat which is a condition precedent for an offence under Section 420 IPC."

8. Upon reading of the agreement dated 29.06.2021, it is clear that

the said agreement was executed for a period of 6 months for a

total sale consideration of Rs.7 Crores and thus the entire payment

was required to be done within a period of 6 months, but as per the

complaint and FIR, the complainant paid only Rs.2.65 Crores to the

applicants and except FIR and complaint, no other documents have

been filed by the complainant in this regard, which may show that

as to how the second party obstructed him to perform his part of

contract in any manner whatsoever.

9. Having considered the facts and circumstances of the case as well

as the submission made by the parties, particularly the agreement

dated 26.10.2021 executed between the parties and for the fact

that the applicants are ready to return the advance amount

received by the complainant, without commenting anything on the

merits of the case, the present is considered to be a fit case to

release the applicants on anticipatory bail.

10. Accordingly, all the bail applications are allowed. It is directed that

in the event of arrest of applicants in connection with crime in

question, they shall be released on anticipatory bail by the officer

arresting them on each of them executing a personal bond in the

sum of Rs.1 Lakh with one local surety of the like amount to the

satisfaction of the Arresting Officer with following conditions :

(i) that the whole advance amount received by the applicants will be returned by them to the complainant within a period of 60 days.

(ii) that they shall make themselves available for interrogation before Investigating Officer as and when required;

(iii) that they shall not, directly or indirectly, make any inducement, threat or promise to any person acquainted with the facts of case so as to dissuade him /her from disclosing such facts to the Court or to any police officer;