The Karnataka High Court held that the complaint was 'bereft of any material that could remotely constitute either cheating or criminal intimidation. (File Photo)While cancelling a cheating and criminal intimidation case registered against an advocate who intervened in a financial dispute for his client, the Karnataka High Court has said the legal profession will be reduced to “one of apprehension rather than independence” if criminal prosecution becomes the inevitable consequence of fearless advocacy.Justice M Nagaprasanna said in his order on August 5, “The majesty of the Bar cannot be permitted to be diminished by disgruntled litigants wielding the criminal process as a weapon of retaliation or intimidation against officers of the Court.”The case was registered against advocate Mayur D Bhanu on a complaint filed by one Shrenik Chandrashekar, to whom his client Gaurav allegedly owed money. On February 3, Chandrashekar visited Gaurav’s home along with a police constable and another person to recover the money. When Gaurav called Bhanu and asked the constable to speak to him, the second person accompanying Chandrashekar allegedly abused the advocate on the phone.A month later, Gaurav got a case registered against Chandrashekar for allegedly assaulting him on March 2. About two and a half months later, on May 12, Chandrashekar filed a counter-complaint stating that Gaurav and Bhanu threatened and cheated him on February 3.Also Read | Bombay High Court to consider interim safeguards for advocates as protection law put on holdThe court said in the order, “The sword that has been made to hang over the head of petitioner, unsupported by legally sustainable allegations and sharpened only by conjecture and afterthought, deserves to be sheathed once and for all.”Advocate Keerthi Krishna Reddy, appearing for Bhanu, argued that the implication of the advocate in the subject crime is nothing but a collateral consequence of his professional engagement. Merely because Bhanu discharged his professional obligation of rendering legal advice to a client, he is named as accused in the case, Reddy further submitted.Invocation of cheating offence ‘wholly alien to facts’The court stated that the offence of cheating presupposes a transaction between the complainant and the accused, coupled with a dishonest intention that permeates the transaction from its very inception.Story continues below this ad“In the case at hand, insofar as the petitioner is concerned, there exists no transaction whatsoever between him and the complainant. The allegation is confined to an alleged telephonic threat.”The order added, “The invocation of the said provision against the petitioner is, therefore, not merely unsustainable, but wholly alien to the facts obtained in the case.”The court thus held that the complaint against Bhanu was “bereft of any material that could remotely constitute either cheating or criminal intimidation in the eye of law”.‘Chilling shadow on fearless discharge of professional duties’Referring to the Supreme Court judgment in Surendra Khawse versus state of Madhya Pradesh (2025) that where criminal proceedings are demonstrably tainted with mala fides or instituted with the predominant object of wreaking vengeance, it is duty of constitutional courts to pierce through the carefully drafted allegations and examine the surrounding circumstances to ascertain whether the criminal process is being deployed as an instrument of oppression rather than an instrument of justice.Story continues below this adJustice Nagaprasanna said, “If indeed the complainant had genuinely perceived the alleged conversation as criminal intimidation, nothing prevented the immediate invocation of the criminal law. The unexplained silence for nearly three months assumes considerable significance.”“An inordinate and unexplained delay, particularly when accompanied by sparse allegations, opens the door to embellishment, exaggeration and afterthought. The case at hand is a textbook illustration of such embellishment, at least insofar as the petitioner is concerned,” his order further said.The order added, “If such slender and nebulous allegations are permitted to mature into criminal investigation, it would cast a long and chilling shadow upon the fearless discharge of professional duties by members of the Bar.”