Now Reading: Failure to pay balance sale consideration is not cheating: Patna HC
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Failure to pay balance sale consideration is not cheating: Patna HC
The Patna High Court has ruled that failing to pay the balance sale consideration under an agreement does not by itself amount to cheating unless dishonest or fraudulent intention existed when the…
The Story in Brief
The Patna High Court has ruled that failing to pay the balance sale consideration under an agreement does not by itself amount to cheating unless dishonest or fraudulent intention existed when the promise was made. Justice Alok Kumar Pandey observed that such intention cannot be presumed merely because a party later failed to keep its promise. The case involved a land transaction where Rs 1.80 crore was paid but Rs 90.20 lakh remained unpaid. A criminal complaint alleging cheating was dismissed by the magistrate and upheld by the revisional court. The High Court declined to interfere, saying the ingredients of cheating were absent.
The Indian Opinion
This judgment corrects the creeping habit of turning every broken contract into a criminal case. The line between civil default and criminal cheating is clear, dishonest intent must exist when the promise is made. Still, one wonders: when a buyer deliberately pays a small upfront sum, gets registration, then refuses the rest, is that not a sign of original bad faith? The court says no, without more. The test will be how lower courts apply this when the initial payment is minuscule compared to the total.
Source: livelaw.in
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
