MALLIGESWARI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PETITION filed under Section 482 Cr.P.C to call for the records in Cr.No.1684 of 2005 on the file of the respondent and quash the same.) The petitioner herein is the second accused in Crime No.1684 of 2006 on the file of the respondent police. It is alleged by the defacto complainant, one Karuppaih, that the petitioner herein (second accused) and her late husband were owners of a plot with an extent of 1000 sq.ft. On 21.10.1996, the petitioner and her husband approached the defacto complainant and offered to sell this plot for celebrating their daughter's marriage for a sale price of Rs.7,50,000/-. The defacto complainant made an advance of Rs.2,50,000/-. After the marriage of the petitioner's daughter, when the defacto complainant approached the petitioner and her husband for getting registration of the plot, they told him that they have wrongly agreed the sale price of Rs.7,50,000/-, that the present value of the plot is Rs.11,00,000/- and that if the defacto complainant offers Rs.11 lakhs as sale price, they will sell the plot to him. The defacto complainant did not agree for this and asked for the return of the advance amount of Rs.2,50,000/- paid by him on 21.10.1996, with interest at the rate of 2% thereon. The petitioner and her husband told the defacto complainant that they will sell the plot to some other person and out of that money, they will return the advance amount received from the defacto complainant along with interest. The defacto complainant, on enquiry, learned that the petitioner and her husband had sold the property to one Selva Kumari and when the complainant asked for return of the advance amount, the accused (petitioner and her husband) told that they paid it long ago. The defacto complainant, therefore, lodged a complaint in Crime No.1684 of 2006 on 01.08.2006 for an offence under Section 420 IPC. As the husband of the petitioner has expired, the petitioner herein states that the allegations in the complaint do not make out a case for breach of contract and denied having committed an offence as such. The petitioner further alleges that the present complaint is a second complaint, that earlier, the very same complainant preferred a complaint in the year 2005 against the very same accused, that the petitioner approached the II Additional Sessions Judge, Chennai in Crl.M.P.No,3122 of 2005 and obtained anticipatory bail, in Crime No. 'Not known'/2005 on the file of the respondent police. The petitioner's further allegation is that the second complaint is not valid in the eye of law, and with a view to harass her, the defacto complainant has preferred the second complaint and has made the petitioner to be arrested. Hence, she prays that the proceedings in Crime No.1684 of 2006 are liable to be quashed.

(2.) ON the above averments, I have heard the learned Government Advocate (Crl. Side), who submitted that the respondent herein registered a complaint only after satisfying that the ingredients for an offence under Section 420 has been made out and hence the petition has to be dismissed.

(3.) ON carefully going through the averments contained in the complaint and also the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in the above decision, I am of the view that the necessary ingredients for prima facie establishing that an offence under Section 420 IPC has been made out are not satisfied in this case. Further, the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that a second complaint on the same set of facts against the same accused is not valid in the eye of law, is also, in my view well founded. I, therefore, find that the second complaint preferred is only an abuse of process of court and hence the proceedings in Crime No.1684 of 2006, in the interest of justice, cannot be allowed to be further proceeded with.