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Anil Ahluwalia vs. State NCT of Delhi and Ors.

Criminal Miscellaneous Case · CNR No. DLHC011080482025Decided 23 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
CRL.M.C. 119/2026CNR: DLHC011080482025
Justice Girish Kathpalia

Background

The petitioner's wife, who had tested positive for Covid-19, was admitted to a private hospital in April 2021 after being refused admission elsewhere, allegedly on payment of a cash advance for a bed. He alleged the hospital repeatedly demanded further payments, stopped her oxygen supply twice, and threatened to discharge her for lack of ICU beds, after which she died. When police did not register an FIR, he approached a magistrate seeking a direction to investigate, but the magistrate declined, and a sessions court upheld that refusal in revision; he then approached the High Court.

Decision Breakdown

The High Court explained that once a person has already used up their one revision petition against a magistrate's order, the law generally bars using the High Court's separate "inherent powers" as a backdoor second attempt at the same relief: that route is reserved only for truly exceptional cases of gross injustice or a complete denial of any remedy. Here, the petitioner was not left without any remedy: his own complaint against the hospital staff was already pending before the magistrate for pre-summoning evidence, and he could still ask for police assistance later under law if genuinely needed. Finding no "rarest of rare" gross injustice, the Court dismissed the petition as not maintainable.

Lesson Learnt

If a person's request for police investigation is refused and that refusal is upheld on revision before a sessions court, the High Court will not ordinarily entertain a second, separate challenge to the same refusal: the proper path forward is to continue with the private criminal complaint already pending before the magistrate.

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