NEW DELHI | APRIL 24, 2025 — The Supreme Court of India has allowed criminal appeals against a judgment passed by the Allahabad High Court, observing that the High Court committed a serious legal error by modifying its final judgment under the guise of a correction application—a clear violation of Section 362 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
The bench comprising Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih criticized the High Court’s approach, remarking:
“It could thus clearly be seen that this Court had observed that the similar exercise undertaken by the High Court in that case was in contravention of the provisions of Section 362 of Cr.P.C. This Court had expressed its great concern that the High Court should have committed this grievous error. We fail to understand as to how the High Court, in the present case also, in spite of the plain and unambiguous words used in the provisions of Section 362 of Cr.P.C., has committed such an error.”
CASE BACKGROUND
The matter arose from a 2012 complaint filed by the appellant, alleging a physical assault by the accused due to longstanding family enmity. An FIR was registered under Sections 323, 324, 452, 504, and 506 of the IPC, and Section 304 was later added after the appellant’s father passed away from the injuries.
The Trial Court convicted the accused. The Allahabad High Court upheld the conviction on appeal. However, the High Court later modified its own judgment following a Criminal Miscellaneous Correction Application filed by the accused, prompting the appellant to approach the Supreme Court.
SUPREME COURT’S ANALYSIS
Referring to Section 362 CrPC, which prohibits courts from reviewing or altering final judgments except to correct clerical or arithmetical errors, the top court noted:
“No doubt that the High Court, while delivering the impugned judgment, has said that it was only correcting a clerical error. However, for testing the correctness of the said finding, it will be pertinent to refer to certain paragraphs of both the judgments of the High Court.”
The Court declared the High Court’s action “totally untenable” and set aside the corrected judgment.
SUPREME COURT’S DIRECTION
“The accused, if they have not undergone their sentence as recorded by the High Court in its first judgment dated 21st May 2018, are directed to surrender before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jaunpur within a period of 4 weeks from the date of this judgment, after which they shall undergo the remaining period of sentence.”
CASE TITLE AND CITATION
- Case: Ramyash @ Lal Bahadur v. The State of Uttar Pradesh and Another Etc. Etc.
- Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 544
LEGAL REPRESENTATION
For the Appellant: AOR Ashutosh Yadav; Advocates Narender Singh Yadav, Smita Singh Deo, Surjeet Singh, Amardeep Gaur, NBV Srinivasa Reddy, Vishal Tiwari
For the Respondents: AORs Vishnu Shankar Jain, Nanita Sharma, Aswathi M.K.; Advocates Shaurya Krishna, Sushil Balwada, Nagendra Singh, Sanjay Gupta, Naman Raj Singh, Gurrick Jassar, Mohit Kumar Singh, Vivek Sharma, Sabnam Sultana, Deepanshu Rana.
