1,500 Kilometres From Home: Seeking Transfer of a Criminal Complaint Rooted Entirely in Delhi
A director wrongly summoned to Calcutta over a loan default he says he never authorised asks the Supreme Court to move the case to where the transaction, and his life, actually happened.
Transfer Petition (Criminal) under Section 446, BNSS, 2023 · Supreme Court of India · Shivam Singh vs. Protium Finance Ltd. & Ors.
The Petition
Mr. Shivam Singh, a Director of M/s Abloom Technocrats Limited and a permanent resident of Gurgaon, Haryana, has approached the Supreme Court seeking transfer of a criminal complaint filed against him in Calcutta to a competent Court at Rohini District Courts, Delhi. The petition, filed under Section 446 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (the erstwhile Section 406, CrPC) read with Order XXXIX of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, is accompanied by an application seeking an ad-interim ex-parte stay of the Calcutta proceedings pending the transfer petition’s disposal.
How the Dispute Arose
The Company had been sanctioned a business loan of ₹10,00,000 by Protium Finance Ltd., a Non-Banking Financial Company headquartered in Mumbai, vide Loan Application No. A457852 dated 10.01.2025. The Loan Sanction Letter, the hypothecation agreement, and all allied documentation were executed at Protium’s Delhi office, and Mr. Singh was recorded as a Co-Applicant, alongside a fellow Director, Ms. Neha Verma.
Repayment was to be routed through an ECS/NACH mandate. According to the petition, that mandate was registered and furnished solely by the Company’s Managing Director not by Mr. Singh, who states he had no access to the Company’s banking operations and never signed or authorised any such mandate. When the debit was returned for insufficient balance on 02.04.2025, Protium proceeded to present the dishonoured mandate for prosecution not in Delhi, where every part of the transaction took place, but in Calcutta a city with which, the petition says, neither Mr. Singh nor the underlying transaction has any connection at all.
The result was a criminal complaint under Section 25(1) of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, before the 17th Judicial Magistrate, Calcutta, with Mr. Singh summoned to appear on 25.11.2025.
Why Delhi, and Not Calcutta
The petition sets out a detailed jurisdictional case for why the complaint has no business being heard in Calcutta:
- The loan was sanctioned, executed, and disbursed in Delhi through Protium’s own Delhi branch office.
- The Company’s registered office is in Delhi, where its statutory filings and records are maintained.
- Related arbitral proceedings, invoked by Protium itself under the same Loan Agreement, are already pending before a Sole Arbitrator at Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi which the petition says confirms Delhi as the parties’ own chosen seat for resolving disputes arising from this loan.
- Protium’s own registered office is in Mumbai, not Calcutta.
- Singh resides in Gurgaon, roughly 1,500 kilometres from Calcutta, and is a Hindi speaker with no knowledge of Bengali, the language of the Calcutta proceedings a barrier the petition says would gravely prejudice his ability to defend himself, engaging Article 21 of the Constitution.
A lender cannot simultaneously treat Delhi as the seat of arbitration and Calcutta as the forum for criminal prosecution, on the very same transaction.
The petition characterises the Calcutta filing as a case of forum shopping pursuing civil recovery through arbitration in Delhi while, on the very same loan, pursuing criminal prosecution over 1,500 kilometres away. It argues this amounts to a deliberate multiplication of proceedings designed to exhaust the Petitioner’s resources, rather than a genuine jurisdictional choice.
The Legal Foundation
In support of the transfer, the petition draws on the Supreme Court’s power under Article 142 to do complete justice, as explained in Monica Kumar (Dr.) and Anr. v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others (2008) 8 SCC 781, and on the principle from State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal 1992 Supp (1) SCC 335, that courts must intervene where the criminal process is being misused to harass a party. It also relies on UOI v. Adani Exports Ltd., (2002) 1 SCC 567, and Chetak Construction Ltd. v. Om Prakash, (1998) 4 SCC 577, for the proposition that a litigant cannot choose the forum most inconvenient to the opposite side merely to harass them or gain a tactical advantage.
What Has Been Asked For
The petition asks the Supreme Court to transfer Complaint Case No. CS/181530/2025 from the Court of the 17th Judicial Magistrate, Calcutta, to a competent Court at Rohini, Delhi where, it says, the cause of action substantially arose. Alongside it, an application seeks an ad-interim ex-parte stay of the Calcutta proceedings so that the transfer petition is not rendered infructuous by the complaint moving ahead before it can be heard.
Why This Case Is Worth Watching
Transfer petitions of this kind sit at the crossroads of criminal procedure and jurisdictional fairness, and are of real practical significance for directors and guarantors of corporate borrowers, who can find themselves personally summoned over instruments they never signed, in cities they have no connection to. The outcome here will turn on how the Supreme Court weighs territorial nexus, the parties’ own choice of Delhi as the arbitral seat for the identical transaction, and the risk of a lender using multiple forums, thousands of kilometres apart, to pressure a party defending the same underlying dispute.
The petition has been drawn by Mr. Atin Handuja, a practicing Advocate before the Supreme Court of India and the Founder Managing Partner of Legalfoxes Advocates and Consultants, a full-service law firm with a practice spanning litigation, dispute resolution, corporate law, taxation, intellectual property, and real estate. He is also Director of Legalfoxes Sourcing Private Limited, the firm’s legal-outsourcing arm serving clients worldwide. Mr. Handuja’s expertise extends well beyond the courtroom.
This post summarises submissions made in a pending transfer petition and does not reflect any judicial finding. It is not legal advice.