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Parshottam Shantilal Chaddarwala v. State of Gujarat and Anr.

Criminal Appeal · 2025 INSC 664Decided 13 May 2025
Criminal Appeal No. 838 of 2011
Justice Bela M. Trivedi · Justice Prasanna B. Varale

Background

The appellant had filed and then withdrawn a civil recovery suit after settling with the defendant out of court. He later filed a separate execution petition based on a decree. It was later discovered that the withdrawn suit's court file had allegedly been tampered with (key documents were replaced with forged pages, including a bogus decree bearing a forged judge's signature and forged court stamps) and this forged decree was used to support the execution petition. A First Information Report was lodged against the appellant and court staff for forgery, cheating, and related offences. The appellant argued that since the alleged tampering concerned court records, cognizance of the case could only be taken on a formal complaint filed by the court itself under Section 195 of the CrPC, not on a police FIR.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that Section 195 CrPC's bar applies only to offences committed while a document is "in custodia legis" (i.e., still part of a live or legally ongoing court proceeding) and which directly affect the administration of justice. Once the civil suit was withdrawn and its file was archived in the record room, the proceeding had legally concluded: merely storing old documents in the record room does not keep them "in custodia legis" for this purpose. The Court found that the tampering occurred after the suit's conclusion and thus fell outside Section 195's bar, meaning the police FIR and ordinary criminal prosecution were valid and did not require a court complaint. It affirmed the High Court's dismissal of the appellant's challenge and upheld the criminal proceedings.

Lesson Learnt

The special protection under Section 195 CrPC, which normally requires a court's own complaint before criminal proceedings can begin over interference with court records, does not extend to acts of forgery or tampering committed after a case has already concluded and its file has been archived; such acts can be prosecuted through an ordinary police complaint like any other criminal offence.

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

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