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Bhisham Lal Verma vs The State of Uttar Pradesh and Another

Special Leave Petition (Crl.) · 2023 INSC 955Decided 30 Oct 2023
Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No. 7976 of 2023

Background

The petitioner, a former Project Director/Additional District Magistrate, was accused of corruption and embezzlement relating to a public sanitation scheme, and was formally charge-sheeted with government sanction obtained to prosecute him. He first approached the Allahabad High Court under Section 482 CrPC challenging only the government's sanction order, and was given liberty to raise that challenge before the trial court instead. Years later, he filed a second petition under Section 482 CrPC before the same High Court, this time seeking to quash the entire charge sheet, the cognizance order, and the proceedings against him: grounds that were already available to him when he filed his first petition. The High Court dismissed this second petition as not maintainable, leading to this case before the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court examined a line of precedents on whether a second petition under Section 482 CrPC can be filed after an earlier one, concluding that while there is no absolute bar on filing successive petitions, this is only permissible when circumstances have genuinely changed since the first petition. Since the charge sheet and the cognizance order were already on record and known to the petitioner at the time he filed his very first petition (which challenged only the sanction order), he could not later use a fresh petition to raise grounds that were fully available to him earlier. The Court held that allowing such piecemeal, instalment-style challenges would let an accused abuse the process to stall proceedings indefinitely, and dismissed the petition, while placing on record its appreciation for the senior counsel who assisted the Court as amicus curiae.

Lesson Learnt

A person challenging criminal proceedings under Section 482 CrPC must raise all available grounds at the first opportunity. Courts will not allow a second, piecemeal petition based on facts and grounds that already existed and could have been raised in the earlier one.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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