Allahabad High Court Quashes Cheating Case Against IVF Doctor, Says Failed Treatment Alone Cannot Prove Fraud

The High Court’s operative decision

Justice Chawan Prakash allowed an application under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure on 26 October 2026. The decision, reported on 2 November, set aside the magistrate’s summoning order of 30 November 2018, the revisional order of 16 October 2020 and the proceedings in Complaint Case No. 2285 of 2017.

The Court examined whether the complaint and preliminary witness statements disclosed the ingredients of cheating under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code. It concluded that the necessary dishonest or fraudulent intention at the inception of the transaction was not demonstrated on the material placed before the magistrate.

The judgment does not say that medical practitioners can never face criminal prosecution. It addresses the specific failure to plead and establish a prima facie basis for deception and dishonest inducement in this complaint.

What the complainant alleged

The complainant, Jaiveer Singh, said that he took his wife to Dr. Sarita Teotia’s fertility centre in Bulandshahr after the couple had been unable to conceive. He alleged that the doctor offered IVF treatment, charged ₹3.5 lakh in instalments and issued a receipt for only ₹1.6 lakh.

According to the complaint, pregnancy did not result from the treatment. The complainant said that his requests for a refund were refused and attributed an incriminating statement to the doctor. These were allegations in the complaint, not independent findings of the High Court that the doctor made the alleged statement or acted fraudulently.

After police did not act on his request, the complainant approached the criminal court under Section 156(3) CrPC. The magistrate treated the matter as a complaint, recorded the complainant’s statement under Section 200 and examined other witnesses under Section 202 before issuing process for cheating. The doctor’s criminal revision was dismissed, leading to the High Court application.

The defence and the legal issue

The doctor argued that assisted reproductive treatment cannot guarantee conception and that a failed medical outcome does not establish fraudulent intent when professional services were actually provided. Her counsel maintained that the essential ingredients of Section 420 IPC were absent and that continuation of the case would misuse criminal process.

The complainant and the State opposed the application. They submitted that the magistrate needed only to form a prima facie opinion at the summoning stage and that the recorded statements justified proceeding. The High Court therefore had to decide whether the threshold for criminal process had been met, not whether the medical procedure had succeeded.

The distinction matters because disappointment with a medical result, a dispute over fees and criminal cheating are legally different categories. A claim may raise contractual, consumer or professional questions without necessarily establishing deception at the beginning of the transaction.

Why the Court found no cheating case

The High Court explained that cheating requires deception, dishonest or fraudulent inducement to deliver property and the necessary intention at the time the representation was made. A later failure to achieve a promised or hoped-for result cannot automatically supply that earlier mental element.

The Court relied on the Supreme Court’s approach to quashing proceedings in State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal, which recognises intervention where the allegations, even if accepted at face value, do not disclose an offence. It also referred to Jacob Mathew v. State of Punjab on the uncertainty inherent in medical science and the need to avoid equating unsuccessful treatment with criminal wrongdoing.

In the circumstances before it, the Court found that the money was paid for professional services and procedures and that the complaint did not show fraudulent intention at the beginning of treatment. The Court warned that automatically criminalising unsuccessful treatment would expose medical professionals to prosecution whenever a procedure failed to produce the desired result.

Summoning orders require judicial application of mind

A separate part of the judgment concerned the magistrate’s responsibility at the stage of issuing process. The High Court emphasised that summoning an accused in a criminal case is a serious step. A magistrate must scrutinise the complaint, the statements and supporting material, and assess whether the alleged offence is prima facie made out.

The Court found the summoning order casual and mechanical. It held that the magistrate had not adequately applied the relevant ingredients of cheating to the material before him. That deficiency reinforced the conclusion that continuation of the criminal case would constitute abuse of process.

For judiciary examination purposes, the ruling illustrates the difference between a failed medical result and the mens rea necessary for cheating, and the supervisory role of the High Court under the then-applicable Section 482 CrPC. The case arose under the pre-2024 criminal law framework; the old statutory provisions were therefore directly applicable to the proceedings.

What follows

The High Court allowed the application and quashed the complaint proceedings along with the summoning and revisional orders. Its decision does not adjudicate any separate civil or consumer claim, nor does it establish a universal immunity for fertility specialists.

The operative consequence is that the doctor is no longer required to face the particular Section 420 IPC prosecution arising from this complaint. Future cases will still depend on their own allegations and evidence, particularly whether deception and dishonest inducement existed at the relevant time.