M.N.G. Bharateesh Reddy v. Ramesh Ranganathan

Criminal Appeal No. 1273 of 2022, decided 18 August 2022

Court: Supreme Court of India (Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction)
Case: Criminal Appeal No. 1273 of 2022 (arising out of SLP (Crl) No. 9509 of 2019)
Decided: 18 August 2022
Bench: Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, A.S. Bopanna (judgment by Dr Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud, J.)
Citation: Criminal Appeal No. 1273 of 2022, decided 18 August 2022
Provisions: Indian Penal Code, 1860, s. 415 (cheating), s. 417 and s. 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) (now Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, s. 318(1), s. 318(2) and s. 318(4))

Headnote

Cheating · IPC s. 415 and s. 420 (BNS s. 318) · Ingredients of cheating · Breach of a consultancy agreement · Cognizance on a private complaint

The case, in the Court's words

The issue which presents itself for determination in these proceedings is whether the ingredients of the offences of cheating and criminal breach of trust have been made out on the face of the complaint. [para 10]

Held

The ingredients of the offence under Section 415 emerge from a textual reading. Firstly, to constitute cheating, a person must deceive another. Secondly, by doing so the former must induce the person so deceived to (i) deliver any property to any person; or (ii) to consent that any person shall retain any property; or (iii) intentionally induce the person so deceived to do or omit to do anything which he would not do or omit if he were not so deceived and such an act or omission must cause or be likely to cause damage or harm to that person in body, mind, reputation or property. [para 14]
a two-judge bench of this Court interpreted sections 415 and 420 of IPC to hold that fraudulent or dishonest intention is a precondition to constitute the offence of cheating. [para 16]
At the most, the allegations allude to a breach of terms of the Consultancy Agreement by the Appellant, which is essentially in the nature of a civil dispute. [para 18]
The allegations in the complaint are conspicuous by the absence of any reference to the practice of any deception or dishonest intention on behalf of the Appellant. Likewise, there is no allegation that the complainant was as a consequence induced to deliver any property or to consent that any person shall retain any property or that he was deceived to do or omit to do anything which he would have not done or omitted to do if he was not so deceived. [para 19]

Result

We accordingly allow the appeal and set aside the impugned judgment and order of the High Court dated 12 July 2019. [para 25]

Editorial note: subsequent treatment

The judgment itself relies on Hridaya Ranjan Prasad Verma (2000) and Dalip Kaur v. Jagnar Singh (2009).

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-318/03 is our own cataloguing label and is not a citation.