'Make Him Sit With Senior Judge' : Supreme Court Directs To Remove Allahabad HC Judge From Criminal Jurisdiction For 'Absurd' Order

Update on August 8 - The strictures against the HC judge were removed by order passed on August 8.

The Supreme Court on August 4 took serious exception to an order passed by the Allahabad High Court, which refused to quash a criminal complaint by saying that the civil suit remedy to recover the money was not effective.

While setting aside the High Court's order, the Supreme Court observed that the High Court Judge, who passed the order, should be made to sit with a senior judge in a division bench. Further, the Court observed that no criminal matters should be allotted to the High Court Judge.

The Court termed the High Court's order "shocking" and remanded the matter to the High Court for fresh consideration by another Judge.

A bench comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and R. Mahadevan was hearing a special leave petition against an order passed by Justice Prashant Kumar of the Allahabad High Court, wherein it was hearing a plea for the quashing of the summons under Section 406 of the Indian Penal Code made by the present appellant. 

The brief facts are that Lalita Textiles(the Respondent before the High Court) filed a criminal complaint against the appellant, alleging that it had supplied thread used for manufacturing to the appellant and that an outstanding amount of Rs. 7,23,711/- was due. Subsequently, the statement of the Respondent/Complainant was recorded and summons were issued against the Appellant. When the Appellant approached the High Court, Justice Kumar suggested that since the Complainant is a "small business firm" and that the amount involved is huge, it would be a travesty of justice to refer the matter as a civil dispute between the parties.

The High Court observed in the order: "O.P. no.2 appears to be a very small business firm and for him, the aforesaid amount along with interest is a huge amount. In case, subject to filing civil suit, O.P. no.2 will not be in position to pursue the civil litigation. In case, O.P. no.2 files a civil suit firstly, it will take years for it to see any ray of hope and secondly, he will have to put more money to pursue the litigation. To be more precise it would seem like good money chasing bad money. If this Court allows the matter to be referred to civil court on account of civil dispute between the parties, it would amount to travesty of justice and O.P. no.2 would suffer irreparable loss and he might even not be in a position to emerge from the financial constraints to pursue the matter."

When the matter was taken up before the Supreme Court, Justice Pardiwala passed certain strong remarks against Justice Kumar. While referring to para 12 of the High Court's order, Justice Pardiwala's bench observed in the order: "The judge has gone to the extent of saying that asking the complainant to pursue civil remedy for the purpose of recovery of balance amount would be very unreasonable, as a civil suit may take a long time before it is decided. Therefore, complainant should be permitted to institute a criminal proceedings before the purpose of recovery of balance amount. This is the understanding of a high court judge that, even ultimately, rightly or wrongly, if the accused is convicted, the trial court will award him the balance amount. 

The findings recorded in para. 12 are shocking. We are left with no other option than to set aside the order even without issuing notice to the Respondents. In the result, we partly allow the petition and set aside the impugned order passed by the High Court. We remand the matter to the High Court for fresh consideration of the criminal miscellaneous application. We request the Hon'ble Chief Justice of the High Court to assign this matter to any other judge of the High Court."

The Supreme Court further observed in the order :

We further request the Hon'ble Chief Justice to immediately withdraw the present determination of the concerned judge. The concerned judge should be made to sit in a division bench with a seasoned senior of the High Court. In any view of the matter, the concerned judge should not be assigned any criminal determination till he demits office. If at all, he is to be to sit as a single judge, he shall not be assigned any criminal determination. Registry to forward one copy of the order to the Hon'ble Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court."

Case Details: M/S. SHIKHAR CHEMICALS v THE STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH AND ANR|SLP(Crl) No. 11445/2025

 Click Here To Read/Download Order