B.Bairagi vs State Of Ap & Others

R. Raghunandan Rao, J

The petitioner is the sole accused in C.C.No.7 of 2018 on the file of Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Tekkali for offences under Sections 420, 403 and 406 of I.P.C. The gravamen of the charge in the charge sheet is that during the year 2014-15 the PACS, Tekkali purchased Paddy from 131 farmers in Khariff season and 26 farmers in Rabi season, common paddy variety to an extent of 2783.663 Mts and 180.920 MTs and Grade-A Paddy. The said Paddy is said to have been handed over to the rice mill of the accused for custom milling and the rice obtained from such custom milling was to be handed over to the Food Corporation of India with a conversion rate of 67% of the Paddy supplied to the rice mill of the accused. This would mean that the accused would have to deliver 1865.054 MTs of common CMR rice and 121.216 MTs & Grade-A CMR rice to the Food Corporation of India.

The charge sheet states that the accused had delivered only 1318.842 MTs of common CMR rice and there was no delivery of Grade-A CMR rice to FCI at all. On this basis, it is stated that the accused had misappropriated by way of breach of trust, an amount 299.063 MTs in KMS and 247.150 MTs of common CMR rice as well as 121.216 MTs of Grade-A CMR rice amounting to Rs.2,61,43,605/-.

The accused has now filed the present criminal petition to quash the said charge sheet on the ground that none of the offences mentioned in the charge sheet are made out.

Sri K.B.Ramanna Dora, learned counsel for the petitioner would submit that the petitioner had offered the said rice to FCI which had rejected the said rice and the stocks of rice are still available for inspection. He would submit that this clearly shows that there was no criminal intent on the part of the petitioner and there would at best be a case of breach of contract which would be a civil dispute and the same cannot be treated as a criminal offence.

The question of whether the petitioner had offered rice to the FCI and the same had been rejected by the FCI is a question of fact which cannot be gone into by this Court.

In such circumstances, this Criminal Petition is disposed of leaving it open to the petitioner to raise these defences before the trial Court and it would be open to the trial Court to look into these defences and also the defence that the dispute is at best a civil dispute of breach of contract and nothing more.

Miscellaneous petitions, pending if any, shall stand closed.