Breaking: Supreme Court Dismisses Andhra Govt.'s Plea Against Quashing Of Criminal Cases Related To Alleged "Amaravati Land Scam"

In a blow to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy, the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the state's SLPs against the quashing of criminal cases filed in connection with the alleged 'insider trading' in land transactions at Amaravati.The bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari was hearing the SLPs at the instance of the AP state government against the January 19 judgment of the Single Judge of the AP High Court observing that private sale transactions cannot be criminalised and that the concept of the offence of "insider trading", which is essentially an offence in the field of stock market relating to selling and buying the securities and bonds, cannot be applied to the offences under Indian Penal Code and cannot be read into Section 420, IPC or into any provisions in the scheme of IPC. The state had filed criminal cases alleging that the respondents before the Supreme Court had purchased lands in Amaravati after being privy to the information from the then-Chandrababu Naidu government that the area was being developed as state capital after the bifurcation of the erstwhile State of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.On Monday, Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, for the state, strenuously argued that provisions of section 418, IPC read with section 55(5) of the Transfer of Property Act would be attracted in the instant case, which has been overlooked by the High Court."As regards section 418, we may observe that the said provision would not be attracted in the facts of the present case. There is no question of any loss being caused to any person or to the sellers or of any cheating by the buyers. Neither by law nor by a legal contract were the buyers obliged to disclose any facts. In any case, the said question was neither argued before the High Court nor are there any pleadings in this regard in this petition nor has this ground been taken. So this argument is noted only to be rejected. There was no such relationship between the buyer and seller for which the buyer was bound to protect the seller", said the bench on Monday.Secondly, it was argued that in a criminal case, the High Court need not have gone into the facts of the matter and should have left it to the investigating agency and the trial court to see whether any criminal act was involved."As regards the submission that the High Court ought not to have gone into the facts of the case and arrived at factual findings, we find that without considering the facts of the case, the question whether any criminal case is made out could not have been decided. Then, in no case can the court go into the question as to whether the FIR is to be quashed or not. Even considering the law laid down in Bhajan Lal, in a petition for quashing, the court has to see the averments in the FIR to determine if a criminal case is made out or not. There is no perversity or illegality in the findings recorded by the High Court", said the bench on Monday, dismissing the SLPs."Five sets of SLPs have been filed by the state of Andhra Pradesh against the buyers of the properties, who are petitioners in the High Court, challenging the judgement of the High Court by which FIRs under sections 420, 409, 406 and 120 B, IPC and all proceedings initiated pursuant thereto have been quashed. Very briefly, the facts of this case are that the respondent-buyers had purchased land from third parties- from sellers who were not party to these proceedings. The said sales were executed sometime in 2014-15. The FIRs have been lodged on 16.10.2020 on the basis of the complaint dated 7.9.2020. The main allegation in the FIR is that the buyers were in the know of the fact that the capital city will be created at the location where the land has been purchased and thereupon, the value of the land would increase and, not disclosing the aforesaid fact, they purchased the said land from the sellers and, as such, cheated the sellers. By the impugned judgement, the High Court has first considered the aspect of locus standi of the de facto complainant who lodged the report with the police, as the complainant was neither the seller nor any other party. However, observing that the concept of locus does not arise in criminal proceedings, the High Court noted the fact that the de facto complainant had lodged the FIR after a lapse of six years. The concept of insider trading in property dealings has also been dealt with by the High Court and has been found to be alien to proceedings under IPC, observing it to be a concept only in company stock. The High Court also found that the the right to acquire and own property is a constitutional right, legal right and human right, so no criminal liability can be fastened to any persons who purchased lands in the proposed capital region. The High Court was of the opinion that sections 420 and 415 of the IPC would not be attracted. After making a recital of the sale deeds, in view of the version of the sellers that they were misinformed about the value of the...

Breaking: Supreme Court Dismisses Andhra Govt.'s Plea Against Quashing Of Criminal Cases Related To Alleged "Amaravati Land Scam"

Mehal Jain

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