SRINAGAR; In a major relief to Apni Party’s Budgam bypoll candidate, Mukhtar Ahmad Dar, the High Court of Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh has quashed an FIR registered against him in an alleged Rs 5 Crore cheating case, holding that the dispute was “purely of civil nature” and did not amount to any criminal offence.
A single bench of Justice Sanjay Dhar, while pronouncing the judgment, observed that the FIR lodged at Police Station Budgam under Section 318(4) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) was an attempt to give a “criminal colour to a civil dispute.” The court, said that the allegations, even if taken at face value, failed to disclose any element of criminality or dishonest intention on the part of Dar.
The FIR was registered in August 2025 on a complaint by a Mumbai-based businessman, who alleged that Dar had received Rs 5 crore as part of a property deal in Dubai and later sold the same to another party. However, the court noted that the documents placed on record, including a debt acknowledgment attested by a Dubai magistrate, clearly established that the amount was advanced as a loan, not as payment for a property sale.
“The transaction between the petitioner and the complainant appears purely of civil nature with no criminal colour to it,” the court said, adding that “the FIR and the proceedings emanating therefrom are an abuse of process of law.”
The court concluded that the matter related to a financial or contractual dispute for which civil remedies were available, and therefore, criminal prosecution was unwarranted. (KDC)
