Allahabad High Court refused to quash forgery proceedings against a tenant accused of fabricating a property sale letter.
Court rejected claims of investigative bias and ruled disputed facts must be examined during the trial.
High Court held alleged forgery disclosed a prima facie offence, allowing criminal prosecution to continue against tenant.
The Allahabad High Court refused to quash criminal proceedings against tenant Ashok Kumar Pandey, whom the complainant accused of forging a landowner's letter to assert ownership of the house he occupied. Justice Sanjiv Kumar delivered the order on July 3, 2026, Indian Express reported.
The dispute concerns a house on Lowther Road in George Town, Prayagraj, that belonged to the complainant's mother. The complainant is a 1991-batch IAS officer of the Madhya Pradesh Cadre who inherited the property after his parents died.
Origin of the Dispute
Pandey lived in the house as a tenant since 1995. In 1999, he filed a civil suit asking the IAS officer's mother to execute a sale deed in his favour, saying she had orally agreed to sell him the house. To back that claim, he relied on a letter dated September 13, 1999, that he said showed that the woman had acknowledged receiving Rs 5.6 lakh as advance sale consideration and had sought another Rs 3 lakh.
After the woman died in 2012, her son joined the civil case as a party. In 2019, while inspecting court records, he alleged that Pandey had forged the 1999 letter. He pointed out that his mother had denied writing it in a written statement and that the document contained grammatical mistakes inconsistent with her education.
He lodged an FIR accusing the tenant of forging the letter and filing it in court to falsely show an agreement to sell the property, leading to a chargesheet for offences including forgery, cheating and using forged documents.
Tenant Claims and Ruling
The tenant argued before the high court that the investigating officer filed the FIR under pressure because the complainant is an IAS officer and his wife is an IPS officer.
The court rejected this contention. "It is also submitted…that the first informant is an IAS Officer and his wife is an IPS Officer, both in the Madhya Pradesh cadre; therefore, under their pressure, the investigating officer has filed the charge-sheet without proper investigation and therefore, the entire proceeding is liable to be quashed. Whether the first informant or his wife has put any pressure upon the investigating officer, and if not, and what is its effect, is a matter of appreciation of evidence which is not permissible in this proceeding," the court ruled on July 3.
Pandey also contended that the complainant lodged the FIR nearly 20 years late without explaining the delay. The court rejected that argument, stating that there is no time limit for filing an FIR for offences punishable with life imprisonment under Section 468 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The court held that Pandey is free to raise the issue before the trial court, which may decide it after examining the evidence. It dismissed the plea to quash the criminal case, holding that the allegations of forging a letter and using it in a civil suit prima facie disclosed a criminal offence. The court ruled that the trial court must decide the disputed factual issues and allowed the prosecution to continue.
