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State of Kerala vs. Suni @ Sunil (with connected CBI appeals)

Not available · 2025 INSC 1260Decided 28 Oct 2025
Not available
Justice Sanjay Kumar · Justice Alok Aradhe

Background

The batch concerned Section 195A IPC, which criminalises threatening a witness or any person connected to them to give false evidence, and its interplay with Section 195(1)(b)(i) of the CrPC, which requires certain offences relating to the administration of justice to be prosecuted only on a complaint by the concerned court (not via ordinary police FIR). In the lead case, a High Court had granted bail to an accused solely on the ground that this court-complaint procedure had not been followed. In the connected CBI matter, witnesses in the killing of one Yogesh Goudar had been intimidated and turned hostile; the CBI treated this as a Section 195A complaint before a Magistrate, but the Karnataka High Court quashed the resulting cognizance order and a related discharge-dismissal order, again citing non-compliance with Section 195(1)(b)(i) CrPC. High Courts across the country had taken conflicting views on this question.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court traced the legislative history, noting that Section 195A CrPC (introduced in 2009) was specifically inserted to let a witness or any other person file a complaint about a Section 195A IPC offence: a procedure fundamentally different from the exclusive "court complaint only" bar under Section 195(1)(b)(i) CrPC, which applies to a specific enumerated list of offences that does not, on its own terms, cover Section 195A IPC. It agreed with the view (taken by some High Courts, including in the Rahul Yadav case) that Section 195A IPC is a cognizable offence for which police can register and investigate an FIR, and that Section 195A CrPC merely provides an additional, non-exclusive route to prosecute the offence. Applying this, the Court set aside the Kerala High Court's bail order (with liberty for the accused to seek bail again on other grounds) and also set aside the Karnataka High Court's orders, restoring the cognizance order and the dismissal of the discharge application in the CBI matter.

Lesson Learnt

The offence of threatening a witness under Section 195A IPC can be investigated and prosecuted through an ordinary police FIR. It does not require the special court-only complaint procedure that applies to offences against the administration of justice, so victims and witnesses are not left dependent solely on the court to set the law in motion.

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

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