The Telangana High Court refused to quash a case of theft and house trespass against actors Rana Daggubati and Venkatesh Daggubati.
Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court has refused to quash a case of theft and house trespass against actors Rana Daggubati and Venkatesh Daggubati, film producer D Suresh Babu, D Abhiram and their accountant Gaddam Vishwanatham, holding that the existence of a parallel civil dispute does not by itself wipe out criminal liability.
Justice N Tukaramji held that while the dispute clearly had civil overtones arising from competing claims over lease rights and possession of a property, “merely because civil remedies have also been invoked cannot, by itself, extinguish criminal liability where the complaint independently discloses the commission of cognisable offences” — that is, offences serious enough for police to act on without a magistrate’s prior permission.
The ruling means the criminal case will now proceed in the lower court.
The case arose from a private complaint, one filed directly before a magistrate rather than through the police, by businessman Kore Nandu Kumar over a property in Film Nagar, Hyderabad, associated with the Deccan Kitchen restaurant. He accused the group of house trespass, theft in a dwelling house, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy under the Indian Penal Code (IPC). He also named some Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) officials in his complaint.
He alleged that the accused, in conspiracy with officials of the GHMC, facilitated the demolition of structures he had built on the leased premises, entered the property illegally, removed movable articles belonging to him and threatened him and his family. According to the complaint, this happened despite interim court orders protecting his possession of the property and without the accused obtaining an eviction decree or following any due legal process.
To back his allegations, the complainant relied on sworn statements, documents, photographs, video recordings and what he described as admissions made by the accused in related civil proceedings.
A magistrate, after recording the sworn statements of the complainant and witnesses, took cognisance of the alleged offences and issued summons to the accused. The Daggubati family moved the High Court in 2024 seeking to have the proceedings quashed, arguing that the matter was essentially a civil one, concerning lease rights, possession and the demolition of structures, and therefore should not be pursued as a criminal case.
The High Court was not persuaded that the presence of a civil dispute barred criminal proceedings. It held that a single dispute may carry both civil and criminal features and that where the complaint and supporting material disclose the ingredients of a cognisable offence, a connected civil case cannot be a ground to quash the criminal proceedings.
The court further held that questions such as whether the allegations were ultimately true, whether the alleged admissions amounted to evidence of unlawful dispossession, whether the complainant was in judicial custody during the relevant period and whether the accused actively took part in the alleged acts were all questions of fact that could only be settled by examining evidence at trial.
“Such issues cannot appropriately be adjudicated in proceedings under Section 482 CrPC,” the court said, referring to the provision that allows High Courts to quash proceedings at the outset, “as doing so would necessarily require the court to evaluate the evidentiary value of the rival versions, which is impermissible at this stage.”
The court also rejected the argument that the magistrate had mechanically issued summons without applying his mind, finding that the order showed the complaint, the statements recorded during preliminary inquiry and the material placed before the magistrate had all been duly considered. It reiterated that at the stage of taking cognisance, a High Court is not expected to weigh evidence in detail or predict the likelihood of a conviction, matters that fall exclusively within the trial court’s domain.
The order does not amount to any finding of guilt against the Daggubatis. The court has only declined to halt the proceedings at this preliminary stage, leaving the complainant’s allegations to be tested through trial.
Dismissing the petition, the court directed that proceedings before the XVII Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate at Nampally, Hyderabad, continue in accordance with law.
This post was last modified on August 13, 2026 1:31 pm