The Supreme Court quashed an FIR against Bollywood producer Shailesh Singh, calling the civil dispute’s criminalisation a misuse of law. It criticised the HC for directing a Rs 25 lakh payment before mediation.
New Delhi: Today, on July 18, the Supreme Court of India has strongly ruled that filing an FIR and seeking police help cannot be used as a way to recover money in civil disputes.
In a major verdict, the apex court quashed a cheating case against Shailesh R. Singh, one of the producers of the Bollywood film Tanu Weds Manu (2011), saying that criminal proceedings were wrongly used in a purely civil matter.
The case involved a complaint by Kunal Jain, who accused Singh of cheating. However, the court found that the complaint was based on a money dispute which should have been dealt with under civil law and not by misusing the criminal justice system.
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A bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan took strong objection to the manner in which the Allahabad High Court handled the petition filed by Singh to quash the FIR against him.
The Supreme Court said,
“Money cannot be recovered, more particularly, in a civil dispute between the parties by filing a first information report and seeking the help of the police. This amounts to abuse of the process of law.”
Advocate Sana Raees Khan, representing Singh, argued that Jain turned a civil dispute into a criminal case to harass Singh. She said that criminal law should not be used as a tool to pressurise someone for money.
The high court, instead of looking into the matter properly, had wrongly asked Singh to undergo mediation and also ordered him to deposit Rs 25 lakh with the complainant before the mediation process even started. This, she said, was unfair and against the basic purpose of filing a petition to quash an FIR.
The Supreme Court agreed and said it was upset with the high court’s approach.
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The bench observed,
“We are quite disturbed by the manner in which the high court has passed the impugned order. The high court first directed the appellant to pay Rs 25,00,000 to respondent 4 (Jain) and thereafter directed him to appear before the Mediation and Conciliation Centre for the purpose of settlement,”
It criticised the way the high court functioned in this matter and added,
“That’s not what is expected of a high court to do in a writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution or a miscellaneous application filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 for quashing of FIR or any other criminal proceedings.”
The court further stated that what needed to be examined was whether a prima facie case of cheating existed against Singh. It said,
“How many times the high courts are to be reminded that to constitute an offence of cheating, there has to be something more than prima facie on record to indicate that the intention of the accused was to cheat the complainant right from the inception.”
After reading the FIR, the top court said it found no criminality involved.
“The plain reading of the FIR does not disclose any element of criminality,”
the court stated.
The bench also referred to its previous 2024 decision in Delhi Race Club v. Uttar Pradesh, which had clearly explained the legal difference between cheating and civil disputes such as breach of trust or money recovery.
Expressing further disapproval of the high court’s method, the Supreme Court remarked,
“We fail to understand why should the high court undertake such an exercise. The high court may either allow the petition saying that no offence is disclosed or may reject the petition saying that no case for quashing is made.”
The bench made it very clear that high courts should not act as a tool to help someone recover money in a civil dispute.
“Why should the high court make an attempt to help the complainant to recover the amount due and payable by the accused? It is for the civil court or commercial court as the case may be to look into in a suit that may be filed for recovery of money or in any other proceedings, be it under the Arbitration Act, 1996 or under the provisions of the IB Code, 2016.”
The Supreme Court expressed surprise that the high court failed to realise that the entire matter was civil in nature.
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The bench said that if Jain had to recover money, he should have approached the proper legal channel such as filing a civil suit or seeking other legal remedies. Criminal proceedings, it said, should not be misused to pressure someone into repayment.
Finally, the court gave a strong reminder of legal principles that high courts are expected to follow when dealing with quashing petitions.
It said,
“What is expected of the high court is to look into the averments and the allegations levelled in the FIR along with the other material on record, if any. The high court seems to have forgotten the well-settled principles as enunciated in the decision of this court…”
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