Criminal antecedents of accused person not sole ground to reject quashing of FIR: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has ruled that an accused person’s criminal antecedents cannot be the sole or primary reason for a High Court to decline quashing of an FIR and connected criminal proceedings.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Vipul M Pancholi has stressed that while exercising powers under Section 482 of the CrPC, courts should not conduct a mini-trial or adjudicate disputed questions of title and ownership over property. 

“The criminal process cannot be permitted to become a weapon of harassment and coercion in disputes concerning title over immovable property,” the bench observed. 

Where the allegations do not disclose cognisable offences or where the proceedings appear to be an abuse of the process of law, the High Court is duty-bound to exercise its inherent jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC to quash them, the court said.

The bench further clarified that merely executing a document claiming property as one’s own does not amount to making a false document if the claim is later found incorrect. 

It also emphasised that a disputed civil claim cannot automatically be treated as fraudulent representation to attract the offence of cheating under Section 420 of the IPC.

The May 22, 2026 judgment came on appeals challenging a November 7, 2023, order of the Gujarat High Court that had refused to quash criminal proceedings against the appellants. 

The case stemmed from a long-standing civil dispute over ancestral land bearing Survey No. 157 at village Panas in Surat.

The appellants accused argued that the FIR, registered in December 2009, was a misuse of criminal law to exert pressure in the civil property dispute pending since 2000. 

They pointed out that injunction orders were operating in their favour and that the complainant had never raised allegations of forgery, extortion or conspiracy during the prolonged civil litigation.

They contended that the Power of Attorney in question was executed knowingly by all parties and repeatedly confirmed before courts. Claiming title or executing documents in a disputed property matter does not constitute creation of a “false document” under Section 464 IPC, they submitted. 

The FIR also lacked the essential ingredient of delivery of property induced by deception for the offence of cheating, they added.

The appellants also highlighted the unexplained delay of nearly nine years in lodging the FIR and noted that it was a second, improved complaint that introduced fresh allegations of extortion after seven months, while suppressing an earlier complaint.

The respondent-complainant, however, maintained that the case involved serious offences including forgery, cheating, extortion and criminal conspiracy, and that one of the accused was a habitual land grabber.

The court noted the significant delay in filing the FIR and observed that when proceedings are alleged to be frivolous or instituted with ulterior motives, courts must examine the FIR carefully and consider attending circumstances beyond the averments made in it.

“In frivolous or vexatious proceedings, the court owes a duty to look into many other attending circumstances... and, if need be, with due care and circumspection try to read in between the lines,” the bench said.

The court held that the High Court erred in relying on the criminal antecedents of the appellants and in making findings on title and ownership, which fall exclusively within the domain of civil courts. 

Allowing the appeals, the court set aside the High Court’s order and quashed the FIR and all consequential criminal proceedings. The bench clarified that its observations should not influence the adjudication of the pending civil suit regarding title and ownership of the property.