S. 482 CrPC | Successive Quashing Petitions Not Maintainable On Grounds Available Earlier But Abandoned: Allahabad High Court

"A ground abandoned by the applicant at the time of previous two petitions, although available at that time cannot be agitated at a subsequent period of time", the single judge noted as he deprecated the practice of piecemeal challenges and termed the applicant's repeated attempts as an act of 'forum hunting'.

Briefly put, applicant Ramdular Singh filed a plea challenging a 2019 charge-sheet, a summoning order and the entire proceedings of a cheating and forgery case pending before an Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate in Varanasi.

During the hearing, the counsel for the opposite party raised a strong preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the petition. It was brought to the Court's attention that the applicant had already filed 2 previous petitions under Section 482 CrPC for the exact same case.

The bench noted that the first petition was dismissed in September 2019, in which the applicant sought discharge without submitting to the jurisdiction of the trial court and had not even obtained bail.

The second petition was filed in 2022 to challenge a Non-Bailable Warrant (NBW) and also sought the quashing of the entire proceedings.

It was lastly argued by the opposite party that the prayer to quash the proceedings was effectively abandoned in 2022, and this third petition was merely a tactic to delay the trial in the case.

The Counsel for the applicant, on the other hand, argued that the facts about the previous petitioner were fairly disclosed in the present plea. He contended that the 2022 HC order pertained only to the NBW and did not adjudicate the prayer for quashing the proceedings.

Therefore, he argued, the present petition challenging the charge-sheet and summoning order would be maintainable. He further submitted that the case concerned a purely civil dispute and that the criminal proceedings were an abuse of process initiated solely to harass the applicant.

Against this backdrop, Justice Gopal, at the outset noted as per 2025 Supreme Court ruling in the case of MC Ravikumar vs DS Velmurugan 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 737, it is not open to an accused person to raise one plea after the other by repeatedly invoking the High Court's inherent jurisdiction when all such pleas were very much available at the first instance.

The High Court also relied upon the Supreme Court's 2022 judgment in Vijay Kumar Ghai v. State of WB, wherein the Top Court had condemned the disreputable practice of forum shopping.

Justice Gopal observed that a ground abandoned by the applicant at the time of the previous two petitions cannot be agitated at a subsequent period of time. The Court noted that the applicant's challenges were entirely 'piecemeal'.

Even though the challenge to the entire proceedings was raised in the 2022 petition, it was abandoned by him then and now the same was raised in the present plea.

Thus, the HC opined that the present petition was not maintainable, as it constituted a repeated attempt by the same applicant to set aside the proceedings pending against him.