BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court refused to quash the criminal case registered against a couple who allegedly cheated a woman by not getting a medical seat for her daughter after accepting Rs 1.4 crore.
Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order rejecting the petitions filed by accused Shilpa A and her husband, Kiran Kumar P, challenging the legality of the crime registered by the victim with Bagalgunte police station under the provisions of the IPC.
The court noted that a mother’s aspiration for her daughter’s medical education is being converted into an instrument of exploitation and the investigating agency should be given time to find out the facts.
The daughter of the complainant, who works in a wellness company and her husband works in a nationalised bank, passed 12th standard and appeared for the NEET examination in 2023 but did not secure an appropriate ranking.
In February 2023, the complainant visited a hospital for consultation where the accused Shilpa was working. Shilpa allegedly told her that she and her husband have contacts with influential people and were capable of securing a medical seat.
They paid Rs 35 lakh in cash initially, and after the admission process reached final stage, Shilpa asked the complainant to transfer an additional amount of Rs 1.05 crore to the bank account of Kiran. Accordingly, the amount was transferred, and in total they had paid Rs 1.40 crore.
However, after receiving the money, the accused began to dodge the complainant, and later the complainant went to Kaggalipura police station and registered a crime. The police registered a zero FIR and transferred it to Bagalgunte police station.
The counsel for the petitioners contended that it is a civil money transaction between the two that happened three years ago. The complainant has taken three years to register the crime of an incident that has never taken place, he argued.
However, the court noted that the submission that the proceedings are merely a coercive device for recovery of money, therefore, cannot become a talisman by the mere utterance of the expression “civil dispute”. Every transaction involving money does not, by that circumstance alone, shed its criminal complexion, the court said.
