HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G.BHAVANI PRASAD Criminal Petition No.5509 of 2009 ORDER: Heard Sri K.M.Mahender Reddy, learned counsel for the petitioners, and Sri A.Srikanth Reddy, learned counsel representing the learned Public Prosecutor for the first respondent. No notice is being ordered to the second respondent as the matter is being disposed of at the stage of admission. The complaint basing on which the first information report was registered alleges the accused Nos.1, 2 and 4 to be involved in the registration of a sale deed in respect of the property in question in favour of the complainant on 24.12.1992 which property was again sold by the same accused to the third accused under a registered sale deed dated 29.01.1993. The subsequent transactions in respect of the same property were alleged to have followed suit and consequently the complainant desires the accused to be punished for the alleged offences under Sections 415 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code. The first information report is still under investigation and what the petitioners/accused Nos.1 and 2 in the crime claim is that the subsequent transactions commencing from the registered sale deed dated 29.01.1993 were not involving them and they also claim that the complainant cannot be the aggrieved party to file the complaint. If the allegations in the complaint are true, irrespective of his continuing in possession since purchase or not, being the purchaser under a registered sale deed in respect of which subsequent transactions were claimed to have been entered into by the accused, the complainant cannot by any means of imagination be considered to be not an aggrieved person, who cannot complain of the loss caused to him. The learned counsel relied on V.Y.Bose v. State of Gujarat[1] wherein the Apex Court held that for the purpose of constituting an offence of cheating, the complainant is required to show that the accused had fraudulent and dishonest intention at the time of making the promise or representation and in the absence of culpable intention at the time of making initial promise being absent, no offence under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code can be said to have been made out. The Apex Court incidentally also made it clear that only because civil law can be taken recourse to would not necessarily mean that criminal proceedings should be barred. The Apex Court referring to various precedents on the aspect also noted that where the allegations were clear, specific and unambiguous, the complainant should have been given a chance to prove his case and where a pure contractual dispute of civil nature but not an offence of cheating is involved, the criminal proceedings are not the appropriate remedy. It was also noted that although breach of contract per se would not come in the way of initiation of criminal proceedings, it is only in the absence of averments in the complaint where from the ingredients of an offence can be found out, the Court should exercise its jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code. On the facts before the Apex Court, the Court has held that the allegations set out in the complaint do not constitute the offence, but that was also a finding given after the cognizance was taken by the Magistrate of the offences. Insofar as the present case is concerned, complaint of the second respondent is still under investigation by the statutory investigating agency. The averments in the complaint have to be verified, probed into and acted upon or not by the investigating agency on collection of all possible evidence during such investigation. Ex facie if the allegations in the complaint are true and if the accused 1, 2 and 4 had sold the same property under registered sale deeds to two different persons within a span of about one month, it cannot be said that there is absolutely no scope of inferring or establishing any culpable intention or knowledge that may possibly constitute the offence alleged. As such the investigation cannot be nipped at the bud in the present case and the mere fact that the dispute has civil and criminal ramifications is no ground to quash the proceedings. Similarly, the gap between the transactions and the complaint of about 17 years may be a factor which the investigating agency or the trial Court will find to be such as to make the allegations of the complainant not acceptable or credible, but if the complaint is not barred by any limitation, it cannot be a ground for taking recourse to the inherent jurisdiction which is available only in rarest of rare cases. Accordingly, the criminal petition should fail. Sri K.M.Mahender Reddy, learned counsel, represents that the very nature of the dispute may not require the arrest and detention of the petitioners during further investigation into crime and the petitioners are ready to extend every co-operation to the investigating agency whenever required. It has to be noted that under the Code of Criminal Procedure, arrest of the suspects is not an inevitable necessity for conducting an investigation and such a compulsive process will be taken recourse to only when it is inevitable for the conduct of further investigation. The investigating agency shall therefore, keeping in view the nature of the dispute and the readiness of the petitioners to assist the investigating agency in further investigation in whatsoever manner lawfully required, take recourse to the process of arrest only if inevitable for the purpose of further investigation of the case. Even if the petitioners are so arrested, they shall forthwith be produced before the concerned Court and the concerned court shall determine any request from the petitioners for grant of bail with all the urgency and expedition that such a request deserves preferably on the same day. However, it is made clear that any observations made herein shall not influence the further investigation in the case or determination of the case on merits by the trial court if a final report were to be filed against the petitioners. Subject to the above observations, the criminal petition is dismissed. ___________________ G.BHAVANI PRASAD 28th JULY, 2009 SUR [1] (2009) 3 SCC 78