1. The instant application is for quashing of the proceedings and charge-sheet in Matigara Police Station case No.591 of 2023 dated 25.7.2023, under sections 406, 420, 34 of the Indian Penal Code, now pending in the Court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate at Siliguri, District-Darjeeling.

2. Dr. Chowdhury learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the petitioner No.2 is now deceased. Therefore, let name of the petitioner No.2 be expunged from the cause title of the instant revision application.

3. The petitioner No.1 remains as the sole accused person in the FIR dated 25th July, 2023, against whom the complainant has alleged in the FIR inter alia that the petitioner No.1 [jointly with his father the petitioner No.2, now deceased] approached the complainant, falsely personifying themselves as the land owners of the subject landed property and insisted him to purchase the said plot of land for a consideration money of Rs. 2 Crores. Allegedly, the complainant was thus falsely induced to part with his money towards payment of advances to the petitioner/accused person, on various dates. A total of Rs. 1.60 Crores have already been paid in favour of the petitioner No.1 and his father, the complainant has stated in the FIR. Allegedly, even after receipt of the said amount, the petitioner No.1 [and his father, now deceased] has not taken any step to execute any deed of transfer of the subject landed, in favour of the complainant. According to the complainant, this amounts to wrongful gain of the petitioner and his father, now deceased. Hence, he files the FIR being Matigara Police Station case No.591 of 2023 dated 25.7.2023, which was registered under sections 406, 420, 34 of the Indian Penal Code.

4. Dr. Chowdhury learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the entire allegation of the complainant made in the FIR is false and fabricated. He submits with reference to a ‘Loan Agreement’ dated 20th November, 2019, executed between the complainant and the petitioner No.1, that, as the petitioner No.1 was in need of money, the parties entered into an agreement for advancing a friendly loan by the complainant to the petitioner No.1, to the tune of Rs. 40,00,000/-.

5. Mr. Chowdhury says the petitioner accepts receipt of Rs. 40,00,000/- as loan amount from the complainant and not a farthing more. Moreover, from the said total loan amount, the petitioner has already refunded a sum to the tune of Rs. 12,00,000/-, to the complainant. That, rest of the amount would also be refunded within a short period of time. Mr. Chowdhury says that the petitioner No.1 is only a bonafide debtor and cannot be alleged with any criminal charges. It is submitted that the transaction between the parties is only a loan, advanced on friendly terms and the same is civil in nature, containing no element of criminality borne therein. Regarding allegation of payment of a total 1.60 Crores of rupees by the complainant to the petitioner No.1, Dr. Chowdhury has submitted the same to be absolutely frivolous and baseless. In this regard, he has referred to the deposition of the complainant in the Court. On basis thereof, he has submitted that the complainant has not been able to place on record any substantive documentary proof, in support of his claim of advancing such huge amount of money to the petitioner. On the other hand he refers to the charge-sheet filed in the instant case. He relies on the noting made in the chart sheet that during investigation and in response to a query raised by the investigating authority, the concerned bank has responded that an amount of Rs. 40,00,000/- was deposited in the bank account of the petitioner on 16th November, 2019 vide cheque No. 000757. Dr. Chowdhury has further submitted that the complainant has lodged the FIR concerning an alleged incident of the year 2019, only belatedly, in the year 2023. According to him, such delay in lodging the FIR is unexplained as yet, and the FIR is an afterthought and unfounded one.

6. For all the reasons as discussed above, Dr. Chowdhury has submitted, that sending the petitioner No.1 for trial in this case would amount to gross abuse of process of the Court and therefore the instant proceeding against the petitioner may be quashed and set aside.

7. Section 528 of BNSS 2023 is the direct descendent from section 482 of the CrPC 1973. It saves the inherent power of the High Court to make orders that give effect to Court orders, prevent abuse of legal  Page 4 of 8 process and secure the ends of justice. The said provision of law empowers the High Court to quash fake or malicious First Information Reports (FIRs), charge sheets, and criminal cases. While exercising power under section 528 of the BNSS 2023 and to quash a criminal case or an FIR under Section 528 of the BNSS, 2023, the High Court relies on a strict, binding four-step test established by the Supreme Court of India. The court also uses the foundational categories from the classic State of Haryana versus Bhajan Lal judgment [reported in (1992) Supp (1) SCC 335].

8. An FIR or criminal case can be quashed at the initial stage if it meets any of the specific parameters like, the allegations in the FIR, even if accepted exactly as written, do not constitute or reveal any cognizable offence against the accused person; that the dispute is purely a commercial, contractual, and/or purely civil in nature for any other reason that was given a "criminal colour" just to force a settlement; that it tend to be just a malicious or mala fide prosecution; or a specific law prevents the case form continuing. However, the Court will not conduct a ‘mini trial’ and weight or evaluate the prosecution’s evidence at this stage, in accordance with law.

9. The gravamen of the prosecution case is that the petitioner dishonestly induced the opposite party to part with a sum of Rs.1.60 crores upon representing himself to be the owner of certain landed property and thereafter failed to execute any conveyance. However, significantly, the investigation itself does not disclose any cogent material demonstrating transfer or payment of the alleged consideration amount of Rs.1.60 crores. On the contrary, the chargesheet records the response received from the concerned bank authority that only a sum of ₹40,00,000/- was credited to the petitioner's bank account through cheque No.000757 dated 16th November, 2019. Beyond the said transaction, no bank record, receipt, contemporaneous document or other legally admissible material has been collected during investigation evidencing payment of the remaining amount alleged in the FIR. Equally significant is the existence of the written Loan Agreement dated 20th November, 2019 executed between the parties. The execution of the said agreement is not disputed. Rather, the petitioner candidly acknowledges receipt of Rs.40,00,000/- thereunder and also asserts that a substantial portion thereof has already been repaid. The existence of this written contractual arrangement fundamentally alters the complexion of the dispute. The admitted documentary relationship between the parties is that of lender and borrower. In the absence of convincing material indicating any independent transaction relating to the alleged payment of Rs.1.60 crores towards purchase of property, the prosecution version remains unsupported by the materials collected during investigation.

10. The admitted documentary evidence, therefore, prima facie demonstrates only one monetary transaction, namely advancement of Rs.40,00,000/- under the Loan Agreement. The investigating agency itself has not been able to collect material establishing any further monetary transaction. Consequently, the foundational allegation regarding payment of Rs.1.60 crores remain unsupported by the materials forming part of the charge-sheet.

11. Assuming for the sake of argument that the petitioner has failed to repay the outstanding amount advanced under the Loan Agreement, such failure, by itself, does not constitute a criminal offence. Mere breach of contractual obligations or non-payment of a debt cannot automatically attract criminal liability unless the prosecution establishes that the accused possessed fraudulent or dishonest intention at the very inception of the transaction. Criminal law cannot be employed as an instrument for enforcing recovery of contractual dues or for exerting pressure in what is essentially a civil dispute. The distinction between a mere breach of contract and the offence of cheating is too well settled to require elaborate discussion. The dishonest intention contemplated under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code must exist from the inception of the transaction. Subsequent failure to honour a contractual promise or inability to repay borrowed money cannot retrospectively convert a purely civil transaction into an offence of cheating. Likewise, criminal breach of trust under Section 406 IPC necessarily postulates entrustment of property coupled with dishonest misappropriation or conversion thereof. Neither the FIR nor the materials collected during investigation disclose the essential legal ingredients constituting such entrustment or subsequent dishonest misappropriation.

12. Tested on the touchstone of the statutory ingredients of the offences alleged, this Court finds that no prima facie case has been made out.

               So far as Section 420 IPC is concerned, the prosecution must prima facie establish—

               (i) deception by the accused;

               (ii) fraudulent or dishonest inducement at the inception;

               (iii) delivery of property pursuant to such inducement; and

               (iv) existence of dishonest intention from the very beginning.

The materials collected during investigation fail to disclose these indispensable ingredients. The admitted documentary evidence indicates a loan transaction. There is no material suggesting that the petitioner never intended to honour the transaction when the money was received or that the Loan Agreement itself was merely a camouflage devised to perpetrate fraud.

13. Similarly, the ingredients of Section 406 IPC require proof of entrustment and subsequent dishonest misappropriation or conversion of entrusted property. The prosecution materials disclose no entrustment in the legal sense contemplated by Section 405 IPC. Money advanced under a loan agreement becomes repayable as a debt. Such money is not held by the borrower in trust for the lender. Consequently, the basic foundation for the offence of criminal breach of trust is conspicuously absent.

14. Viewed from another angle, the present prosecution falls squarely within the well-recognised categories enumerated in State of Haryana versus Bhajan Lal [(1992) Supp (1) SCC 335]. Even if the allegations contained in the FIR are read together with the materials collected during investigation in their entirety, they do not disclose the commission of the offences alleged. Rather, the materials reveal a contractual loan transaction accompanied by a subsequent dispute relating to repayment. The criminal proceeding thus appears to have been invoked for enforcing what is essentially a civil liability arising out of a contractual relationship. Such use of criminal process has consistently been deprecated by the Supreme Court. The inherent jurisdiction of the High Court is intended to prevent misuse of criminal process where the criminal justice system is employed for settling private contractual disputes. Criminal law is designed to punish public wrongs affecting society and not to serve as a mechanism for recovery of money under private contracts. Permitting such prosecutions to continue would blur the well-recognised distinction between civil liability and criminal culpability and would encourage litigants to employ criminal proceedings as instruments of coercive recovery.

15. The investigating agency itself has collected material affirmatively supporting receipt of only ₹40,00,000/- through banking channels while remaining completely silent regarding the alleged payment of the balance amount of ₹1.20 crores. The absence of foundational evidence in support of the principal allegation renders the continuation of prosecution wholly disproportionate. Criminal trial cannot be permitted to proceed merely on assertions unsupported even by the materials gathered during investigation. The jurisdiction under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (corresponding to Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) is intended to secure the ends of justice and prevent abuse of the process of Court. Where the admitted documents, read with the prosecution materials themselves, unmistakably disclose a civil dispute bereft of the essential ingredients of the alleged criminal offences, compelling an accused to undergo the rigours of a criminal trial would itself constitute abuse of the Court’s process. Subjecting the petitioner to a full-fledged criminal trial in such circumstances would amount to permitting the criminal process to be used for an oblique purpose and would constitute a manifest abuse of the process of law.

16. Accordingly, this Court is satisfied that the present case falls within the recognised parameters warranting exercise of inherent jurisdiction for quashing the criminal proceeding. The revisional application, therefore, succeeds and is allowed. The entire criminal proceeding arising out of Matigara Police Station Case No. 591 of 2023 dated 25th July, 2023, including the charge-sheet and all consequential proceedings pending before the learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate at Siliguri, District Darjeeling, is hereby quashed and set aside in exercise of powers under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. Pending applications, if any, shall stand disposed of.

17. Urgent certified copy of this judgment, if applied for, be supplied to the parties upon compliance with all requisite formalities.