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Prabhakar Yeshwant Masram v. Sou Tula Namdeorao Jaipurkar

Criminal Appeal · 2026 INSC 724Decided 21 Jul 2026
Criminal Appeal No. 1365 of 2015
Justice Ujjal Bhuyan · Justice Atul S. Chandurkar

Background

In a civil property dispute, the appellant filed a miscellaneous appeal and stay application (drafted by his lawyer's typist) that contained inaccuracies, for example, using the word "dismissed" where an earlier order had actually been "disposed of," and omitting the word "no" in one sentence. The opposing party accused the appellant and his counsel of deliberately lying to secure a stay, and after a contempt petition was dropped, obtained an order under Section 340 CrPC directing that a criminal complaint be filed against both for giving false evidence; the High Court upheld this direction.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court quashed the direction to prosecute, holding that the lower courts had only found "wrong statements", not the deliberate, knowing "false statements" that Sections 193, 199 and 200 of the Penal Code require. It stressed that an inadvertent or typographical error, especially one for which a correction application had already been filed before any complaint was made, does not meet the threshold of deliberate falsehood needed to trigger criminal proceedings. The Court also found that the trial court had failed to separately record why prosecuting would be "expedient in the interest of justice," a mandatory requirement under Section 340(1), and criticised the High Court for going further than the original order by making a fresh finding of a "false affidavit" in an appeal filed only by the aggrieved party.

Lesson Learnt

Not every incorrect statement made in court papers is a crime. Courts can only order perjury-type prosecutions where there is a genuine, deliberate falsehood intended to deceive, and even then, only after separately concluding that prosecution actually serves the interests of justice; honest drafting or typing errors, especially ones promptly flagged for correction, do not qualify.

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

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