Section 405

The Supreme Court restored the 2002 acquittal of a telephone department cashier accused of criminal breach of trust over Rs 8.73 lakh of bill collections in 1993. The cashbook, daily registers and audit report that would have shown entrustment were never produced, the seizure from his house was not proved, and the High Court wrongly shifted the burden to him and sentenced him without hearing him on sentence (paras 13-25).

The Supreme Court quashed a Section 498A IPC and Dowry Prohibition Act case against a woman's parents-in-law, holding that the allegations against them were vague and omnibus, attributed no specific overt act, and had no support beyond her own complaint and her parents' statements (paras 25-26). Applying Bhajan Lal, Arti Mehta and Geddam Jhansi, it said criminal law must not reach every family member without a clear factual foundation (paras 16-17, 26). The case against the husband was untouched (para 27).

The Supreme Court quashed a 2012 cheating case against two directors of a steel trading company who withheld Rs 1.19 crore for TMT bars to set off a Rs 2 crore deposit they said the supplier owed them. The grievance was essentially civil, no civil suit had been filed, and using criminal proceedings to recover money was an abuse of process (paras 22, 27-30).