The court of the CBI Special Magistrate, Haryana, has discharged a businessman in a Rs 35.98-crore bank loan dues case, holding that the offence of criminal breach of trust was not made out as the essential ingredient of entrustment of property was missing.Relying on Supreme Court judgments, including CBI v. Duncans Agro Industries Ltd. and Satishchandra Ratanlal Shah v. State of Gujarat, the CBI court observed that a mere breach of a contractual obligation does not automatically constitute criminal breach of trust without a clear case of entrustment.According to the prosecution agency CBI, Chaudhary was running a printing business under the name of M/s Sapphire Digital Printers. Punjab National Bank had sanctioned a cash credit limit of Rs 40 lakh to the firm on June 24, 2008, which was subsequently enhanced and renewed.The borrower was eventually granted total credit facilities of Rs 48.27 crore, comprising a cash credit limit of Rs 29 crore and a term loan of Rs 19.23 crore. The facilities were secured through personal guarantees and a charge over movable assets, including high-value printers, a plotter, cutting machines and stitching machines.The bank declared the account a non-performing asset on March 31, 2018, with outstanding dues of Rs 35.98 crore. During a subsequent visit to the firm’s premises, bank officials allegedly found that the machinery and stock hypothecated to the bank had been removed without the bank’s permission.CBI alleged that the removal of the assets amounted to criminal breach of trust.Defence counsels Sameer Sethi and Yavneet Dhakla argued that Chaudhary was alleged to have removed movable properties in the form of high-value printers, plotter, cutting machine, stitching machine, etc., already hypothecated to the lending bank to secure a loan facility. “But admittedly these goods were owned by the accused himself, and they were not in the ownership of some person other than the accused,” they said. They added that, in view of the catena of Supreme Court judgments, even if CBI’s allegations were admitted, the necessary ingredient of entrustment of property required under Section 406 of the IPC was not made out in this case.CBI Special Magistrate Anil Yadav concluded, “…perusal of record on the file and the case laws relied upon by defence counsel show that for constituting offence of criminal breach of trust, there must be entrustment of property, and misappropriation of property with dishonest intention in violation of terms and conditions of entrustment but in this case, the very first ingredient namely entrustment of property is conspicuously missing…”The judgment, dated October 8, said that in this case, the accused himself was owner of the property allegedly alienated. “Therefore, in view of the aforesaid legal position, even if the version of the prosecution is admitted as such, the ingredient of entrustment of property is still missing, because how can an owner entrust property to himself,” it added.