In a FIR filed against high-ranking officials, including Lalit Goyal, the managing director of IREO Group, and Vikas Oberoi, the chairman and managing director of Oberoi Realty, the Supreme Court has halted further proceedings under different sections of cheating, criminal breach of trust, and forgery. The vacation bench, comprising Justices Sanjay Kumar and Augustine George Masih, while seeking responses from the Haryana police and others, noted that the second complaint against IREO and Oberoi officials had been filed without disclosing the earlier complaint, which pertained to the purportedly forged letter dated September 9, 2022, by the complainant Chandan Singh. The bench emphasised that the second complaint did not mention this letter, despite its relevance. The Supreme Court raised concerns about whether filing the second complaint constituted an abuse of process and whether the complainant had approached the Court with unclean hands, scheduling a further hearing for July 29. The IREO and Oberoi groups challenged the Punjab and Haryana High Court?s decision to uphold the FIR registration, asserting that Singh, representing Advance India Projects (AIPL), had failed to disclose the first criminal proceeding where relief was not granted and subsequently filed a second complaint at a different police station. IREO, through its counsel, Nikhil Jain, stated in its appeal that the High Court's order reflected a skewed perspective favouring the complainant and misconstruing both factual and legal aspects. The FIR was lodged following a complaint by AIPL, alleging conspiracy by the realty groups to defraud allottees who had invested in projects since 2013. IREO had entered into an MoU with AIPL in 2021 for a housing project in Gurugram's Sector 58, but terminated the agreement in 2022 due to alleged non-payment by AIPL. Subsequently, AIPL filed a suit claiming the MoU was still valid, and later lodged a complaint accusing IREO and Oberoi officials of forging documents. The trial court dismissed this initial complaint. AIPL, represented by Singh, then filed a second complaint seeking FIR registration against IREO and Oberoi officials in another Gurugram court, a plea that was granted and later upheld by the High Court. The police subsequently filed an FIR on June 7 against several individuals, including top executives from both real estate firms, based on AIPL's allegations of embezzlement and misappropriation of funds. This sequence of events highlights the complex legal and procedural issues surrounding the dispute between AIPL and the real estate companies, now subject to scrutiny by the Supreme Court.