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On Tuesday, Andhra Pradesh High Court quashed the FIR filed against the petitioners about Amaravati land scam case by invoking the powers under Section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure.
The allegations against the petitioners were that they had the inside knowledge that Amaravati would be the new capital of the newly created Andhra Pradesh after its division. They, therefore, bought the land in and around Amaravati at lower prices before the official announcement to build a new capital.
"The concept of the offence of insider trading which is essentially an offence in the field of stock market relating to selling and buying the securities and bonds cannot be applied to the offences under Indian Penal Code and cannot be read into Section 420 IPC or into any provisions in the scheme of Indian Penal Code. The said concept of offence of insider trading is totally alien to IPC and it is unknown to our criminal jurisprudence under the Indian Penal Code. So, it cannot even contextually or relatively apply to the facts of the case to prosecute the petitioners," the Court ruled.
The petitioners had no legal obligations to disclose the facts relating to latent advantage in purchasing the land and therefore, it does not constitute dishonest concealment of the facts under Section 420 of IPC. Therefore, the court found that there is no offence under Sections 420, 406, 409 and 120-B of IPC as claimed in the FIR.