HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY CRIMINAL PETITION No.5287 OF 2008 ORDER: This Criminal Petition is filed by the Petitioner/Accused (For short, ‘The Accused’) under Section 482 Cr.P.C seeking to quash proceedings in C.C. No.138 of 2008, pending on the file of the Court of Judicial Magistrate of First Class at Narsapur, Medak District, registered for offences punishable under Sections 406 and 420 I.P.C. 2. Whereas the Petitioner is the Accused, the second Respondent is the De-facto Complainant in the above Calendar Case. For the sake of convenience, I refer the parties as arrayed in the Calendar Case. 3. The prosecution case in brief is as follows : The accused is holding a quarry lease for rough stone and metal in Survey No.144 of Khajipally village, Jinnaram Mandal of Medak District over an extent of 04-00 hectares that was granted by the Government of A.P. vide Proceedings No.5315/QL/04, dated 02-12-2004 of the Director of Mines and Geology and proceedings No.3041/A3?04, dated 09-12- 2004, of the A.D.M.G. Medak valid up to 08-12-2019. The Accused being handicapped by financial resources and technical expertise to start the plant approached the de-facto complainant’s company and extended offer of partnership/jointly promoting the project to manufacture ROBO SAND by utilizing the quarry/mining lease and after negotiations the accused and the de-facto complainant arrived at an understanding and entered into an agreement wherein it was agreed that the accused would be taken in the Board of the ROBO SAND company as Additional Director and be paid a consolidated remuneration of Rs.6,10,000/- and in turn the Accused had to transfer the mining lease in favour of the de-facto Complainant in the presence of Bhaskar Nagender Rao (Notary) and execute the GPA in favour of the de-facto complainant to take all appropriate steps for the transfer of mining lease and for obtaining necessary permissions from competent authorities. Consequently, the Accused received the agreed amount of Rs.6,10,000/- through cheques with Nos.091916 and 351406 respectively and executed a Memorandum of Understanding dated 04-06-2005, G.P.A. dated 08-06-2005, Affidavit dated 02- 11-2005, and Agreement dated 02-11-2005 for the purpose of transfer of mining lease. Later, the de-facto complainant purchased land adjacent to the mining lease area of the accused to establish the ROBO SAND plant and placed orders for relevant machinery and equipment. At that juncture, the accused entered into similar agreement with M/s.Rock Sand Minerals Private Ltd., and subsequently filed an objection before the Assistant Director of Mines and Geology, Medak disowning the earlier agreement with the de-facto complainant and revoking the General Power of Attorney given in favour of the de-facto complainant and requested the competent authorities to stop the processing of the transfer application forwarded by the de-facto complainant consequently to transfer the mining lease in favour of M/s. Rock Sand Minerals Private Ltd., Thus the Accused committed criminal breach of trust and cheated the de-facto complainant by entering into another agreement with another company in spite of entering into the agreement with the de-facto complainant and receiving the remuneration of Rs.6,10,000/- through cheques. Hence, the Accused is liable to be punished for the alleged offences. 4. Contention of learned counsel for the Accused is as follows : In fact on 29-11-2005 the Accused executed a deed of Revocation of the Power of Attorney in favour of the de-facto complainant and subsequently she entered into agreement with M/s.Rock Sand Minerals Private Ltd., for the establishment of plant and carrying on mining activities and later the de-facto complainant filed O.S. No.218 of 2006 on the file of Junior Civil Judge, Narsapur, Medak District, to restrain the accused from claiming and carrying out or permitting to carry out quarrying operations in the said property and also filed I.A. No.805 of 2006 for interim injunction which was dismissed on 28-11- 2006, following which he also filed C.M.A. No.17 of 2006 on the file of Senior Civil Judge, Medak, which was dismissed on 23-08-2007 and further having waited for one year the de-facto complainant filed this Complaint with all false allegations and hence no offences are made out against the Accused. 5. It is contended by the learned counsel for the de-facto complainant that Irrevocable General Power of Attorney was executed on 08-06-2005 and the Revocation of Power of Attorney is claimed to be executed by the Accused on 17-08-2006 and the allegations made against the Accused makes it very clear that the offences punishable under Sections 406 and 420 I.P.C. are made out against him and there are no grounds to allow the Criminal Petition. 6. There are clear allegations supported by record, which are sufficient to constitute the said offences. It is pertinent to note here that it is a case of inducing the de-facto complainant to do some act and thereby the de-facto complainant parting with the amount of Rs.6,10,000/- and consequently non performance of the contract in question. A copy of order passed in C.M.A. No.17 of 2006, dated 23- 08-2007 is herewith filed and it provides that while dismissing the C.M.A. it was observed therein that the possession of the property was in the hands of third parties to grant temporary injunction and also observed that there was inducement on the part of the accused to do the acts in question and accordingly cheated the de-facto complainant. Emphatically the accused is not denying the contract, whereas she claims the cancellation of it which the other party denies which aspect is to be proved to be true. 7. There can be both civil liability and criminal liability as laid down in a decision reported in KISHAN SINGH v. GURPAL SINGH AND OTHERS[1], where it is held as follows : “Thus in view of the above, the law on the issue stands crystallized to the effect that the findings of fact recorded by the Civil Court do not have any bearing so far as the criminal case is concerned and vice-versa. Standard of proof is different in civil and criminal cases. In civil cases it is preponderance of probabilities while in criminal case it is proof beyond reasonable doubt. There is neither any statutory nor any legal principle that findings recorded by the court either in civil or criminal proceedings shall be binding between the same parties while dealing with the same subject matter and both the cases have to be decided on the basis of the evidence adduced therein. However, there may be cases where the provisions of sections 41 to 43 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, dealing with the relevance of previous Judgments in subsequent cases may be taken into consideration.” Simply because there is only civil liability it does not mean that there is no criminal liability and further unless necessary trial of the case is conducted, it cannot be said that the Accused is innocent of the accusations leveled against him. Hence, the Criminal Petition is liable to be dismissed. Accordingly, the Criminal Petition is dismissed. However, since case has become very old and the corresponding charge sheet in the case was already filed, the learned Judicial Magistrate of First Class at Narsapur, Medak District is directed to dispose of the matter within a period of six (6) months from the date of receipt of a coy of this order. __________________________ G. KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY, J Dated: 27-09-2011. Dsh. THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. KRISHNA MOHAN REDDY 243 CRIMINAL PETITION No.5287 OF 2008 (Date.27-09-2011). Dsh. [1] AIR 2010 SC 3624