Justice BR Gavai & Justice Augustine George Masih, Supreme Court
Modifying Conviction By Changing Entire Reasoning Cannot Be Termed As Correction Of Clerical Error U/S. 362 CrPC: Supreme Court
|The Supreme Court allowed Criminal Appeal challenging the Judgment of the Allahabad High Court in a Criminal Miscellaneous Correction Application which was preferred by the accused persons.
The Supreme Court directed the murder accused to surrender, saying that the High Court committed error in spite of plain and unambiguous words used in Section 362 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC).
The Court was dealing with Criminal Appeals challenging the Judgment of the Allahabad High Court in a Criminal Miscellaneous Correction Application which was preferred by the accused persons.
The two-Judge Bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih observed, “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 unambigious words used in the provisions of Section 362 of Cr.P.C., has committed such an error.”
Advocate Narender Singh Yadav represented the Appellant while AOR Nanita Sharma, Advocates Shaurya Krishna, and Sushil Balwada represented the Respondents.
Factual Background
In 2012, the Appellant lodged a Complaint against the accused persons alleging that owing to a previous enmity between the families of the Appellant and the accused persons, they had verbally and physically assaulted him and his family members with various weapons which led to severe injuries being suffered by the Appellant and his family. Based on the Complaint, an FIR was registered against the accused persons for the offences punishable under Sections 323, 324, 452, 504, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC).
Upon the death of the Appellant’s father, the offence punishable under Section 304 of the IPC was added to the FIR. The Trial Court convicted the accused persons and being aggrieved, they approached the High Court via Appeals. The Division Bench upheld the Trial Court’s Judgment. Thereafter, they filed a Correction Application which was allowed and the impugned Judgment was modified. The said Application sought a clarification of a previous Judgment and Final Order of the Division Bench. Being aggrieved, the Appellant approached the Apex Court.
Reasoning
The Supreme Court in the above regard, said, “It can thus be seen that, under Section 362 of Cr.P.C., once the judgment and final order is signed disposing of a case, no Court is allowed to alter or review the same except to correct a clerical or arithmetical error. 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 added that even upon a plain reading of the provisions of Section 362 of CrPC, the procedure adopted by the High Court was totally untenable.
It, therefore, concluded that there is no other option but to allow the Appeals of the Complainant.
“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”, it directed.
Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the Appeal and quashed the High Court’s Judgment inasmuch as it was not competent to have reviewed its Judgment and Order.
Cause Title- Ramyash @ Lal Bahadur v. The State of Uttar Pradesh and Another Etc. Etc. (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 544)
Appearance:
Appellant: AOR Ashutosh Yadav, Advocates Narender Singh Yadav, Smita Singh Deo, Surjeet Singh, Amardeep Gaur, NBV Srinivasa Reddy, and Vishal Tiwari.
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, and Deepanshu Rana.