HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD APPLICATION U/S 528 BNSS No. - 45494 of 2025 Court No. - 81 HON'BLE MADAN PAL SINGH, J. 1. Heard the learned counsel for the applicants, learned counsel for opposite party no.2 and the learned A.G.A. for the State. 2. The present application under Section 528 B.N.S.S. has been filed by the applicant for quashing of the impugned charge-sheet dated 26th July, 2023, cognizance/summoning order dated 11th December, 2023 as well as the entire proceedings of Criminal Case No. 1281 of 2023 (State of U.P. Vs. Ram Kumar & Others) arising out of Case Crime No. 1114 of 2022 under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 I.P.C. Police Station-Nandgram, District-Ghaziabad, pending in the Court of Additional Civil Judge (Senior Division)-VI, Ghaziabad. 3. Brief facts of the case is that the First Information Report dated 17th December, 2022 has been lodged by O.P, no.2/complainant against the nine named accused persons including the applicants herein by alleging therein that the informant Anita Sharma, wife of late Dinesh Sharma, resident of Sadiq Nagar, Sihani, Ghaziabad, alleges that Ram Kumar, Satyapal @ Santu, Rajveer, Dushyant, Sushil and others conspired to fraudulently sell land in Khasra No. 748, Village Sadiq Nagar, Pargana Loni, Tehsil and District Ghaziabad, measuring 0.2780 hectare (2780 sq. metres). Out of the total area, 836 sq. metres was occupied by roads, leaving 1944 sq. metres for plotting. According to the informant, the respective shares of the alleged owners were Ram Kumar–324 sq. m., Satyapal–324 sq. m., Rajveer–243 sq. m., and Dushyant and Sushil–81 sq. m. each. The informant had purchased a 185.79 sq. metre plot from Manju Verma through a registered sale deed dated 28.07.2011. Manju Verma had earlier purchased the said plot from Ram Kumar, son of Mangat, through a sale deed dated 09.04.2008. The informant thereafter constructed a boundary wall around the plot. On 25.06.2022, the informant's son Bhupendra Sharma, Advocate, allegedly found Satyapal, his Versus Counsel for Applicant(s) : Vijit Saxena Counsel for Opposite Party(s) : G.A., Shiv Sagar Singh Ram Kumar And 2 Others .....Applicant(s) State of U.P. and Another .....Opposite Party(s) son Amit, Ravindra and others attempting to illegally occupy the informant's plot. On being resisted, they allegedly abused and threatened him. On his calling 112, the police arrived and took both sides to the police station. Again, on 05.08.2022 at about 5:00 p.m., the informant allegedly found Ram Kumar, Satyapal, Rajveer, Dushyant, Sushil, Ravindra, Pradeep Tyagi and Rakesh attempting to forcibly take possession of her plot. When the informant resisted, the accused allegedly abused her, threatened to kill her and her son, threatened to make their bodies disappear, claimed to have influence with senior police officers, pushed and assaulted her, causing her to fall, and stated that they had already resold her plot and other vacant plots and would forcibly take possession thereof. The informant further alleges that, upon verification from the Registry Office, it was found that Rajveer, Ram Kumar, Dushyant and Sushil together had ownership of only 729 sq. metres out of the remaining 1944 sq. metres, whereas they had allegedly prepared and executed sale deeds relating to plots measuring 1437.65 sq. metres, i.e. land in excess of their alleged ownership/share. 4. It is specifically alleged that, by fraudulently representing themselves as owners and preparing/using forged and fabricated documents, the accused sold land beyond their entitlement, including the informant's plot, thereby causing wrongful loss to the informant and other purchasers and wrongful gain to themselves. The informant alleged that the accused were habitual land fraudsters/land mafias and had previously been involved in similar transactions. She referred to Case Crime No. 672/2022, Police Station Nandgram, and Case Crime No. 1583/2017, Police Station Sihani Gate, and stated that the relevant agreements, documents and evidence would be supplied to the Investigating Officer. The FIR was ultimately registered against (i) Ram Kumar, (ii) Rajveer, (iii) Dushyant, (iv) Sushil, (v) Satyapal @ Santu, (vi) Ravindra, (vii) Pradeep Tyagi, (viii) Rakesh and (ix) Amit, alleging that they conspired to sell land beyond their ownership by preparing forged/fake documents, attempted to take forcible possession of the informant's 185.79 sq. metre plot, abused and assaulted the informant and her son, threatened them with death, and committed obscene acts with the informant. 5. After lodging of the aforesaid first information report, the investigation proceeded and upon completion of the same, the Investigating Officer has submitted the charge-sheet against the applicant on which the cognizance has been taken and the applicant has been summoned, hence the present application has been filed. 6. The contention of the learned counsel for the applicants is that the applicants are innocent. The the allegations made in the present first information report implicating the applicants with other accused are false and NA528 No. 45494 of 2025 2 fabricated. The present first information report lodged by opposite party no.2 is nothing but a bundle of lie and the same has been lodged only for exploiting the applicants by indulging their names in a fake, false and frivolous case. The entire prosecution story as unfolded in the first information report is absolutely a self-made story projected by opposite party no.2. 7. It is further submitted that as per the prosecution case itself, it is an admitted position that the applicants are neither the vendees and nor vendors in the present case. It is Manju Verma from whom the opposite party no.2/informant has purchased the land in dispute through a registered sale deed dated 28.07.2011 and Manju Verma had earlier purchased the said plot from Ram Kumar, son of Mangat (applicant no.1), through a sale deed dated 09.04.2008. It is then submitted that the informant/opposite party no.2 has admitted herself in the first information report that she has taken possession over the land in dispute by making a boundary wall and also she has not lodged any case against Manju Verma from whom she has purchased the land in dispute. Learned counsel for the applicants lastly submits that even if the allegations made against the applicants are assumed to be true, they unmistakably arise out of a civil dispute qua a land, which has been given a criminal colour. The machinery of criminal law cannot be permitted to be misused for settling civil disputes or to wreak vengeance. On the above premise, learned counsel for the applicants submits that since the present criminal case gives a criminal colour to a civil dispute the same cannot be legally sustained and is liable to be quashed. 8. Per contra, learned A.G.A. and the learned counsel for opposite party no.2 have contented that from the allegations made in the First Information Report cognizable offence is made out against the applicants. The defence of the applicants cannot be taken into consideration, at this stage. Therefore, the applicant does not deserve any indulgence. However, they could not dispute the fact that the present criminal case arises out of a civil dispute between the parties and the fact that the land in dispute has not been purchased by the informant/opposite party no.2 from the applicant no.1. The informant has purchased the said land from Manju Verma. 9. I have considered the facts and circumstances of the case, the submissions made by the learned counsel for the applicants, learned counsel for opposite party no.2 and the learned A.G.A. for the State and gone through the records of the present criminal application. 10. From the version as unfolded in the first information report lodged by informant/opposite party no.2 and her statement recorded under Section 180 NA528 No. 45494 of 2025 3 B.N.S.S., it is apparent that a plot area 185.79 square meters has been purchased by the informant in the year 2011 from Smt. Manju Verma wife of Raja Verma, who had purchased the said land from applicant no.1 in the year 2008. The dispute arose between the parties is for taking possession over the said land. It is also admitted that instead of instituting civil proceedings before the competent court of law for taking possession over the said land, the informant has engineered the present criminal case implicating the applicants, who are no concern with the purchase of the said land by the informant. It is also admitted that the informant has not initiated any proceedings against Smt. Manju Verma, from whom she has purchased the land in dispute. The entire fact reveals that civil litigation gives criminal colour by means of the present criminal case by the informant. In purchase of the said land, the applicants have not taken any money from the informant for purchase of the said land, meaning thereby that there is no inducement on the part of the applicants to deliverer any property decisively. Similarly, the applicants have not fabricated any documents in sale of the said property to the informant. As such, no case under Sections 420, 467 and 468 I.P.C. is made out against the applicants. So far as the offence under Section 323 I.P.C. is concerned, no medical examination report of the injured is on record, therefore, case under Section 323 is also not made out against the applicant. Since no evidence has been collected by the Investigating Officer regarding offence under Section 354 I.P.C. against the applicants, he has not submitted the charge-sheet in that section. The present case is a purely civil in nature rather than criminal. 11. The Apex Court has, in a long line of decisions, deprecated the tendency to convert civil disputes into criminal proceedings. In Indian Oil Corporation v. M/s. NEPC India Ltd. reported in (2006) 6 SCC 738, it was held that criminal law cannot be used as a tool to settle scores in commercial or contractual matters, and that such misuse amounts to abuse of process. The following paragraphs from the decision are apposite: “9. The principles, relevant to our purpose are: (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 reliability or genuineness of the allegations in the complaint, is warranted while examining prayer for quashing of a complaint. (ii) A complaint may also be quashed where it is a clear abuse of the process NA528 No. 45494 of 2025 4 of the court, as when the criminal proceeding is found to have been initiated with malafides/malice for wreaking vengeance or to cause harm, or where the allegations are absurd and inherently improbable. (iii) The power to quash shall not, however, be used to stifle or scuttle a legitimate prosecution. The power should be used sparingly and with abundant caution. (iv) The complaint is not required to verbatim reproduce the legal ingredients of the offence alleged. If the necessary factual foundation is laid in the complaint, merely on the ground that a few ingredients have not been stated in detail, the proceedings should not be quashed. Quashing of the complaint is warranted only where the complaint is so bereft of even the basic facts which are absolutely necessary for making out the offence. (v) A given set of facts may make out: (a) purely a civil wrong; or (b) purely a criminal offence; or (c) a civil wrong as also a criminal offence. A commercial transaction or a contractual dispute, apart from furnishing a cause of action for seeking remedy in civil law, may also involve a criminal offence. As the nature and scope of a civil proceedings are different from a criminal proceeding, the mere fact that the complaint relates to a commercial transaction or breach of contract, for which a civil remedy is available or has been availed, is not by (2006) 6 SCC 738 itself a ground to quash the criminal proceedings. The test is whether the allegations in the complaint disclose a criminal offence or not." 10. While on this issue, it is necessary to take notice of a growing tendency in business circles to convert purely civil disputes into criminal cases. This is obviously on account of a prevalent impression that civil law remedies are time consuming and do not adequately protect the interests of lenders/creditors. Such a tendency is seen in several family disputes also, leading to irretrievable break down of marriages/families. There is also an impression that if a person could somehow be entangled in a criminal prosecution, there is a likelihood of imminent settlement. Any effort to settle civil disputes and claims, which do not involve any criminal offence, by applying pressure though criminal prosecution should be deprecated and discouraged." 12. Similarly, in Inder Mohan Goswami & Another Versus Sate of Uttranchal & Others reported in AIR 2008 SC 251 has emphasized that criminal prosecution must not be permitted as an instrument of harassment or private vendetta. 13. In Ganga Dhar Kalita Vs. State of Assam reported in (2015) 9 SCC 647 has again reiterated that criminal complaints in respect of property disputes of NA528 No. 45494 of 2025 5 civil nature, filed solely to harass the accused or to exert pressure in civil litigation, constitute an abuse of process. 14. Most recently, in Shailesh Kumar Singh @ Shailesh R. Singh Vs. State of Uttar Pradesh & Others (Criminal Appeal No. 2963 of 2025 decided on 14 th July, 2025: 2025 INSC 869), the Apex Court has disapproved the practice of using criminal proceedings as a substitute for civil remedies, observing that money recovery cannot be enforced through criminal prosecution where the dispute is essentially civil. 15. In view of the aforesaid discussion and deliberations, this Court is of the considered opinion that the present case arises out of a civil dispute qua taking possession over the land in dispute and for the same dispute the present criminal case cannot be legally sustained and is liable to be quashed. 16. Consequently, the entire proceedings of Criminal Case No. 1281 of 2023 (State of U.P. Vs. Ram Kumar & Others) arising out of Case Crime No. 1114 of 2022 under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 I.P.C. Police Station-Nandgram, District-Ghaziabad, pending in the Court of Additional Civil Judge (Senior Division)-VI, Ghaziabad are quashed. 17. The present criminal application is, accordingly, allowed. There shall be no order as to costs. September 8, 2026 Sushil/- NA528 No. 45494 of 2025 6 (Madan Pal Singh,J.) Digitally signed by :- SUSHIL KUMAR SINGH High Court of Judicature at Allahabad