Sachin Garg v. State of U.P.

2024 INSC 72

Court: Supreme Court of India (Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction)
Case: Criminal Appeal arising out of SLP (Criminal) No. 4415 of 2023
Decided: 30 January 2024
Bench: Aniruddha Bose, Sanjay Kumar (judgment by Aniruddha Bose, J.)
Citation: 2024 INSC 72
Provisions: Indian Penal Code, 1860, ss. 405 and 406 (now Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, s. 316(1) and s. 316(2))

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Headnote

Criminal breach of trust · IPC s. 405 and s. 406 (BNS s. 316(1), 316(2)) · Commercial dispute · Dishonest misappropriation · Quashing of complaint

Held

For Section 405 IPC to be attracted, the following have to be established: (a) the accused was entrusted with property, or entrusted with dominion over property; (b) the accused had dishonestly misappropriated or converted to their own use that property, or dishonestly used or disposed of that property or wilfully suffer any other person to do so; and (c) such misappropriation, conversion, use or disposal should be in violation of any direction of law prescribing the mode in which such trust is to be discharged, or of any legal contract which the person has made, touching the discharge of such trust. [para 8]
A mere wrong demand or claim would not meet the conditions specified by Section 405IPC in the absence of evidence to establish entrustment, dishonest misappropriation, conversion, use or disposal, which action should be in violation of any direction of law, or legal contract touching the discharge of trust. [para 9]
We do not find any material to come to a prima facie finding that there was dishonest misappropriation or conversion of any material for the personal use of the appellant in relation to gas supplying work done by the respondent no.2. The said work was done in course of regular commercial transactions. [para 14]
To make out a case of criminal breach of trust, it is not sufficient to show that money has been retained by the appellants. It must also be shown that the appellants dishonestly disposed of the same in some way or dishonestly retained the same. The mere fact that the appellants did not pay the money to the complainant does not amount to criminal breach of trust. [para 15]

Result

We accordingly set aside the impugned judgment and quash the Criminal Complaint Case No.7990 of 2020 as also the summoning order issued on 18.08.2021. The appeal stands allowed in the above terms. [para 21]

Editorial note: subsequent treatment

Editorial note: paras 8, 9 and 15 reproduce passages from Deepak Gaba v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2023) and Binod Kumar v. State of Bihar (2014), which the Court applied.

The headnote consists of extracts from the Court's judgment, selected by The Daily Bench for convenience. The selection is not part of the judgment, is not a law report and should not be cited. It may contain errors; rely on the official judgment. Library reference TDB-LL BNS-316/05 is our own cataloguing label and is not a citation.