A client filed a police complaint, not a consumer case

A client's refund has been stuck for three weeks. Instead of a consumer complaint, they walk into the local police station and file a police complaint that uses the word "cheating." That single word changes what kind of fight you're in. A refund dispute in consumer court is decided over money. A cheating case is decided over your liberty.

Most operators never have to tell the two apart, because most disputes never leave the civil track. But any operator who runs advances and books through suppliers is one bad refund cycle away from a client's lawyer trying to reframe a service failure as a crime. Panic in the first 24 hours, an unsupervised statement to a constable, or a WhatsApp "settlement" typed while shaking, does more damage than the original complaint ever could.

This post lays out the legal test that separates the two tracks, the documents that defend you on it, what to actually do in the first day, how a complaint moves toward an FIR, when anticipatory bail becomes relevant, and what to do when the "victim" is the one doing the threatening. None of this replaces a lawyer looking at your file. It's the map, so you know which conversation you're in before you open your mouth.

Civil deficiency vs criminal cheating: the one-line test

A refund dispute stays a civil matter, decided in consumer court over money, unless the client's lawyer can show you had dishonest intention at the moment you took the booking money, not merely that you later failed to deliver. That one distinction, intent at inception versus a downstream failure to perform, is what separates a consumer complaint from a criminal case under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Section 318.

Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property is now BNS Section 318(4) (as of August 2026), replacing the old IPC 420, and it carries imprisonment of up to 7 years plus fine (Devgan.in, BNS Chapter 17). But courts have been consistent that a mere breach of contract is not cheating. The doctrine, most commonly traced to the Supreme Court's ruling in Hridaya Ranjan Prasad Verma v. State of Bihar, requires that dishonest or fraudulent intention existed right at the start of the transaction, not that it can be inferred later just because the trip fell apart (Indian Kanoon case-law search on Hridaya Ranjan Prasad Verma).

That's the whole test. A hotel that didn't have the rooms it confirmed is a service failure. It only becomes cheating if you never intended to book that hotel in the first place and pocketed the money instead. Consumer courts, by contrast, work off a lower bar, "deficiency in service," which doesn't require proving intent at all. How consumer courts actually decide cases against travel agencies is a different playbook entirely, and worth reading if what's landed on your desk is a consumer notice rather than a police complaint. It's a gentler fight, and confusing the two changes how urgently you should be moving.

How a routine operational failure gets dressed up as "cheating"

A client's lawyer doesn't need much to write "cheating" into a complaint, just one sentence that reframes non-performance as deception. Three patterns show up most often.

A supplier didn't perform. The trekking guide you contracted never showed, or the hotel you'd confirmed on paper didn't actually have the block on the ground. The honest version: a supplier let you down. The reframed version a lawyer will write: "You took my money for services you never intended to provide."

A refund is still stuck with an airline or hotel. You cancelled on the client's behalf and the refund hasn't landed after eight weeks. The honest version: airline refund cycles run slow and you're chasing it. The reframed version: "You collected my money and never even tried to get it back, you just kept it," sometimes escalated to criminal breach of trust under BNS Section 316 if the client frames the advance as money entrusted to you for a specific purpose you never fulfilled (Devgan.in, BNS Chapter 17).

The itinerary changed on the ground. A hotel downgrade, a cut activity, a rerouted transfer because of weather or a landslide. The honest version: operations adapted to conditions. The reframed version: "You sold me one product and delivered another, that's inducement by deception."

None of these, on their own, prove dishonest intent at booking. What defeats the reframing is showing what you actually did with the money and when.

The documentary spine that defeats a cheating charge

Four documents do almost all the defending, because each speaks directly to the one thing the prosecution has to prove: dishonest intent at the moment you took the money.

1. Signed terms and conditions. Proof the client agreed to a specific cancellation and refund structure before they paid, showing a genuine commercial arrangement existed from day one, not a con dressed up as a booking. Cancellation terms that survive consumer court covers how to draft these so they hold up on both tracks.
2. Supplier invoices. Proof the client's money actually went to the hotel, DMC, or airline you said it would, and wasn't diverted into your own account, the strongest rebuttal to "you took my money and did nothing."
3. Refund correspondence with the airline, hotel or supplier. Emails, portal screenshots, ticket numbers, anything showing you were actively chasing the refund, not sitting on it.
4. A timestamped WhatsApp or email trail. What was promised, when, and whether any change was communicated to the client at the time it happened rather than concealed.

Together, these four answer the Hridaya Ranjan test directly: were you honest at the point the money changed hands. If yes, and you can show it in writing, a cheating charge struggles to survive scrutiny, whatever the underlying consumer-court outcome eventually is.

The first 24 hours after a complaint or a police call

The first day decides more than most operators realise, because almost everything that goes wrong afterward traces back to something said or sent in a panic before a lawyer was in the room.

Do not:

• Settle by WhatsApp under threat. A message sent while a client is threatening to go to the police, agreeing to "just refund double and make this go away," can read as an admission later, and it does nothing to stop the complaint if the client files anyway.
• Give a statement to police without a lawyer present or briefed beforehand. What you say to an investigating officer in an unguarded five minutes becomes part of the record.
• Delete or edit any chat, invoice, or record connected to the booking. Altering evidence after a complaint surfaces looks like consciousness of guilt, and can become its own problem separate from the original allegation.

Do:

• Engage a criminal lawyer immediately, even if your agency already has a CA or a lawyer who handles your consumer-court matters. A cheating complaint is a different specialism, and the two roles shouldn't be collapsed into one advisor.
• Start pulling together the documentary spine from the section above while everything is fresh and easy to locate.

Careful: This is legal information, not legal advice. Every fact pattern here is genuinely case-specific. Talk to a criminal lawyer before you act on anything in this section, not just your CA or your usual advocate.

From complaint to FIR: the procedural stages, in order

A police complaint doesn't automatically become an FIR, and an FIR doesn't automatically end in arrest. Knowing where you are in the sequence tells you how urgent the situation actually is.

1. Complaint at the police station. The client narrates their version, written or oral, to the officer on duty.
2. A possible preliminary enquiry. For offences punishable between 3 and under 7 years, exactly BNS 318(4)'s bracket, BNSS Section 173(3), in force since 1 July 2024, lets police run a preliminary enquiry before registering an FIR, to check whether a cognizable offence is even made out (Indian Kanoon search on BNSS Section 173). This tracks a carve-out the Supreme Court's Constitution Bench built into the mandatory-FIR rule in Lalita Kumari v. State of Uttar Pradesh, which flagged commercial disputes among the categories where an enquiry can precede registration (Indian Kanoon search on Lalita Kumari).
3. FIR registration, if the enquiry (or the complaint itself) shows a prima facie cognizable offence.
4. Investigation. Statements, document collection, possibly a summons asking you to appear and explain your side.
5. Notice before arrest, not automatic arrest. Because BNS 318(4) tops out at 7 years, police are commonly reported, as of August 2026, to be bound by a BNSS Section 35 notice-of-appearance norm before arresting, an echo of the Supreme Court's Arnesh Kumar v. State of Bihar (2014) guidance (search corroboration on BNSS Section 35). Treat this as reported practice, not independently verified against the bare statute, and confirm the current position with your lawyer.

Don't wait for an FIR to get a lawyer. The complaint and enquiry stages are exactly when a documentary spine, handed over calmly, can stop a case from progressing at all.

When you may need anticipatory bail

Anticipatory bail is bail sought before arrest, for someone who reasonably apprehends they're about to be arrested in a non-bailable, cognizable case. Under the recodified criminal law, this power is commonly reported, as of August 2026, as BNSS Section 482, replacing the old CrPC Section 438 (search corroboration on BNSS Section 482). The section numbering is recent and still being confirmed across sources, so treat it as something to verify with your lawyer, not a fact to cite yourself in a filing.

How to get anticipatory bail in a 420 case

An application is filed, through your lawyer, in the Sessions Court or the High Court, before or immediately after an FIR, citing the specific complaint and your reasonable apprehension of arrest. It argues no dishonest intent at inception, a documentary trail showing genuine business conduct, no flight risk, and no history of tampering with evidence. The court can grant conditional pre-arrest protection, so you can't be arrested on that complaint without first getting a chance to seek regular bail.

In which case anticipatory bail can be granted

Grant of anticipatory bail is discretionary, not automatic. Courts weigh the nature of the accusation, your antecedents, whether custodial interrogation is genuinely necessary, and the risk of tampering with evidence. Cheating under BNS 318(4), capped at 7 years, is exactly the kind of offence where anticipatory bail is regularly sought and often granted, especially where the underlying dispute already has a clear paper trail. It's a discretionary remedy, not a right, so raise it with a criminal lawyer as soon as you sense a complaint coming, not after.

When the complaint is really extortion

Sometimes the person threatening you with a police complaint is the one committing an offence. Extortion is now BNS Section 308: intentionally putting someone in fear to dishonestly induce them to hand over property, punishable with up to 7 years. It escalates to up to 10 years when the threat is specifically to accuse a person of an offence, under Section 308(6)-(7) (Devgan.in, BNS Chapter 17).

A client who messages "pay me back double what I paid or I'm going straight to the police and filing a cheating case" is not just negotiating hard. That's a threat to accuse you of an offence, made to dishonestly extract money, the textbook shape of aggravated extortion under Section 308.

Preserve the threat. Screenshot it, keep the original chat or voicemail intact, don't delete anything even if it's uncomfortable to reread. Hand it to your lawyer, who can use it both to defend against the cheating allegation and, where warranted, to consider a cross-complaint.

Replying to a legal notice without making it worse

There is no single statutory deadline for replying to an ordinary legal notice in India. That's a genuine myth, and it usually comes from conflating a completely different, narrower rule with general practice.

How many days do I have to reply to a legal notice?

For a plain lawyer-to-lawyer legal notice, no fixed clock exists in Indian law. The 15-day figure people quote comes from Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, the cheque-dishonour provision, which gives the drawer 15 days after a demand notice to pay before a criminal complaint can be filed for a bounced cheque (Indian Kanoon search on Section 138 NI Act). That rule is about cheque bounce specifically. If your notice isn't tied to a dishonoured cheque, don't assume a 15-day clock applies. Reply promptly anyway, silence can be read against you, but don't panic over a deadline that may not exist for your notice.

How do I reply to a legal notice in India?

A reply is drafted or vetted by your lawyer, on their letterhead, referencing the notice's date and reference number, and responding point by point to what it alleges. It states your version of the facts, backed by the documentary spine, and never concedes language like "cheating," "dishonest," or "fraud," even while admitting facts that are objectively true, such as the amount received or the dates involved.

What is the format for a legal notice reply?

The structure is consistent: your advocate's letterhead, the notice's reference and date, a point-by-point response admitting or denying each allegation, your version of events, and a closing paragraph on what you're offering (a refund timeline, for instance) or why not, without admitting an offence. Keep it short; over-explaining tends to hand the other side more to work with, not less.

Never send your own reply, by WhatsApp or personal email, to the client or their lawyer during this period. Route everything through your own counsel.

The paperwork that prevents this from ever starting

Most of this only becomes necessary because the paperwork wasn't in place before the trip ran. Written cancellation and refund terms, built to survive consumer court, settle in advance what a client is owed and when, so there's no ambiguity for a lawyer to reframe later. An invoice and receipt chain naming the actual supplier the money was paid to, not a vague "package cost" line, is what makes the documentary spine possible on day one instead of something reconstructed under pressure. And advance-payment schedules that match what you can actually refund mean a stuck refund is a timing problem you can explain, not a black hole a lawyer can point to as proof you never meant to give the money back.

Get that paperwork right, and most disputes never make it past the first conversation at the police station. If one lands anyway, a consumer notice is a calmer track to be on, and this same paperwork is what keeps it there.

The short version

• A refund dispute is civil, decided in consumer court, unless a client's lawyer can show dishonest intent at the moment you took the booking money, not merely a later failure to deliver. That's the whole legal test.
• Cheating under BNS Section 318(4) carries up to 7 years plus fine; criminal breach of trust under BNS Section 316 and extortion under BNS Section 308 are the other two charges that sometimes get invoked in these disputes.
• Four documents defend you: signed terms and conditions, supplier invoices proving where the money went, refund correspondence showing you chased it, and a timestamped WhatsApp or email trail.
• In the first 24 hours: no WhatsApp settlements under threat, no statements to police without a lawyer, no editing or deleting records, and a criminal lawyer engaged immediately, separate from your usual CA or consumer-court advocate.
• For BNS 318(4)'s 7-year bracket, arrest is not automatic; a notice-of-appearance is commonly reported to come first, and anticipatory bail under BNSS Section 482 is available if you reasonably apprehend arrest, though confirm the exact provision and your options with a lawyer given how recent this recodification is.
• If a client threatens to file a police complaint unless you pay more than you owe, that threat itself may be extortion under BNS Section 308. Preserve it, don't delete it.
• There's no universal deadline for replying to a legal notice in India; the 15-day figure people cite is specific to cheque-bounce notices under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, not a general rule.