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Shri Sukhbir Singh Badal vs Balwant Singh Khera

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 466Decided 28 Apr 2023
Criminal Appeal No. 1116 of 2023
M.R. Shah · C.T. Ravikumar

Background

The complainant alleged that the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) party, led by Shri Parkash Singh Badal (its then President) and other leaders including his son Sukhbir Singh Badal and Dr. Daljit Singh Cheema, had submitted a Constitution to the Election Commission of India (for registration as a secular political party) that conflicted with a different Constitution submitted to the Gurudwara Election Commission: the latter restricting SGPC membership/voting to Sikhs, which the complainant argued was inconsistent with the secularism affidavit given to the ECI. A private criminal complaint filed in 2009 (about the affidavit from 1989) led a trial court to summon the appellants for offences of forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy (Sections 420, 465-468, 471 read with 120B IPC). The Punjab and Haryana High Court refused to quash the summoning order, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that even taking the complaint's allegations as true, the ingredients of the offences alleged were not made out, filing a Constitution with the Election Commission that was allegedly inconsistent with a separate document submitted to a different body (the Gurudwara Election Commission) amounted, at best, to making a false claim, which is legally distinct from forgery (creating or using a false document as genuine, under Sections 465-468 and 471 IPC). The Court also noted the extraordinary 20-year delay between the original 1989 registration application and the 2009 complaint. It concluded that continuing the criminal prosecution would be an abuse of the process of law and court, quashed the summoning order and the entire criminal proceedings, while expressly clarifying that it was not ruling on the validity of the SAD's Constitution itself, and that its order would not affect separate pending proceedings before the Delhi High Court on that question.

Lesson Learnt

Not every factual inconsistency between two documents submitted to different authorities amounts to forgery in criminal law: forgery requires the creation or use of a false document as genuine, which is a narrower and more specific wrong than merely making an allegedly false claim or statement.

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

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