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Sanjay Kumar Tiwari vs. The State (Govt. of NCT of Delhi)

Writ Petition (Criminal) · 2026:DHC:8404Decided 28 Sept 2026New Delhi Bench
W.P.(CRL) 2410/2026CNR: DLHC010369372026
Justice Saurabh Banerjee

Background

The petitioner, representing himself, was facing a long-pending criminal trial (FIR from 2007, now 19 years old) at a Delhi trial court. He had already been acquitted in three separate but related FIRs from the same period. He asked the High Court to force his current, still-pending case to be clubbed together with those already-closed cases, to cancel a trial-court order that he said unfairly limited his ability to present defence evidence, and to declare that the trial judge was biased against him.

Decision Breakdown

The Court rejected all the reliefs sought. Since the three other related FIRs had already concluded (with acquittals), there was nothing left to "club" his ongoing case with, so the Supreme Court precedent he relied on (requiring related cases to be tried together) simply didn't apply anymore. On the fair-trial complaint, the record showed the petitioner had, in fact, already complied with the very order he was challenging (filing his written defence statement), undermining his claim of unfairness. The Court also found his bias allegations against the trial judge were unsupported by any concrete evidence: merely being described (incorrectly) as a "convict" in an interim order, while proceedings were still pending, was not sufficient proof of bias, especially given the case had dragged on for 19 years with repeated transfer requests from the petitioner himself. The petition was dismissed in limine with no costs.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will not entertain vague, unsubstantiated allegations of judicial bias, and a request to combine cases becomes moot once the other related proceedings have already concluded: genuine grievances about trial delay or procedure must be backed by specific, demonstrable facts, not just repeated litigation.

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