Fraud, Cheating, Forgery & Mischief

Economic offences require coordinated attention across criminal, civil and regulatory tracks. Under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, cheating is punished under Section 318 (with cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property under Section 318(4)); criminal breach of trust under Section 316; forgery and related offences under Sections 336 to 340 (including forgery for cheating and use of a forged document as genuine); and mischief under Section 324. The central legal question in most of these cases is whether the dispute is genuinely criminal or a civil breach dressed in criminal clothing. Criminal liability for cheating requires a dishonest or fraudulent intention existing at the very inception of the transaction — a mere subsequent failure to perform a contract is civil. We map the dispute across the BNS, the Companies Act, the IBC and SEBI angles, and pursue prosecution where appropriate while defending civil disputes that are wrongly criminalised. From FIR and complaint strategy to document-heavy trials with handwriting and signature expert evidence, and quashing where the case is essentially civil, we handle the full spectrum.