Two FIRs Cannot Brand a Man a ‘Goonda’: Allahabad HC Awards Rs 50,000 Damages Against State Bureaucrats
Allahabad High Court quashed Goondas Act proceedings against a Ghaziabad man branded a habitual offender on just two criminal cases, awarding him Rs 50,000 in damages recoverable from bureaucrats’ salaries.
Justice Sandeep Jain, sitting singly at the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, has quashed orders passed by two Uttar Pradesh authorities branding Abhishek Tyagi of Ghaziabad a “Goonda” under the Uttar Pradesh Control of Goondas Act, 1970. The court found that two criminal cases — separated by a gap of three years — were plainly insufficient to establish the habitual conduct the Act demands. Going further, Justice Jain awarded Rs 50,000 in damages to the petitioner, directing that the amount be recovered from the salaries of the bureaucrats responsible for the orders and paid within one month. The judgment marks a pointed warning: continued disregard of settled law on the Goondas Act will now attract punitive consequences for individual officials.
The Goondas Act Proceedings Against Abhishek Tyagi
The Uttar Pradesh Control of Goondas Act, 1970 empowers executive authorities to declare a person a “Goonda” — broadly, a habitual criminal — and to impose restrictions on their movement and residence. Under Sections 2 and 3 of the Act, a designated authority can initiate proceedings and pass an order directing attendance at a police station, externment, or other restrictions.
In Tyagi’s case, two FIRs were registered at Police Station Teela Mod, District Ghaziabad. The first, Case Crime No. 326 of 2022, was under Sections 323, 352, 504, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code. The second, Case Crime No. 174 of 2025, was registered under Sections 109(1), 115(2), 190, 191(2), 191(3), 351(3), and 352 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. On the strength of these two cases alone, proceedings under Section 2/3 of the Act were initiated against Tyagi.
By order dated 18 September 2025, the Additional Commissioner of Police, Commissionerate Ghaziabad, declared Tyagi a Goonda and directed him to reside at his permanent address and mark his attendance every second and fourth Saturday of the month at the concerned police station in District Ghaziabad for a period of six months. Tyagi challenged that order before the Commissioner, Meerut Division, in Appeal No. 3148 of 2025. The Commissioner dismissed the appeal by order dated 10 December 2025. Tyagi then filed Criminal Misc. Writ Petition No. 1903 of 2026 before the Allahabad High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution, seeking a writ of certiorari to quash both orders.
Petitioner’s Case and State’s Defence
Counsel for Tyagi, Akhilesh Kumar Vishwakarma and Anil Kumar Singh, argued that two criminal cases cannot, as a matter of settled law, support a finding that a person is habitually involved in the commission of offences. The Goondas Act requires habitual conduct — not isolated incidents — and neither of the two FIRs involved serious offences sufficient to justify the stigma of being branded a Goonda. They pressed for the quashing of both orders.
The Additional Government Advocate appearing for the State took a contrary position. The submission was that two registered cases demonstrated that Tyagi was a habitual offender, that the Additional Commissioner of Police had so concluded in the order of 18 September 2025, and that the appellate authority had affirmed that finding on 10 December 2025. The State urged that the orders suffered from no illegality warranting interference in the court’s extraordinary writ jurisdiction.
A Settled Legal Position the Bureaucracy Chose to Ignore
Justice Jain surveyed a line of consistent Allahabad High Court authority to demonstrate that the legal position was, in fact, long settled.
A coordinate bench, in Lalani Pandey @ Vijay Shankar Pandey v. State of UP, 2010 SCC OnLine All 2411, had laid down that a person can be treated as a Goonda under clause 2(b)(i) of the Act only when he is habitually involved in the commission of the specified offences. That judgment, drawing on Shankar Ji Shukla v. Ayukt, Allahabad Mandal, Allahabad and Others, 2005 (52) ACC 638, and on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Vijay Narain Singh v. State of Bihar and Others, (1984) 3 SCC 14, held that “habitually” means “repeatedly” or “persistently” — implying a thread of continuity stringing together similar repetitive acts. Isolated acts, or even two acts committed with a long interval between them, do not satisfy this standard.
A Division Bench in Govardhan v. State of UP, Neutral Citation No. 2023:AHC:169934-DB, had gone further, cautioning that executive authorities must be “doubly sure” about an individual’s past image, credentials, and social background before invoking the Goondas Act. That bench noted that trivial and insignificant offences, one or two in number, would not justify the Goonda label — a label which “carries bundle load of bad name” and can cause irreparable damage to the person and his family if applied casually.
Another Division Bench in Saurabh @ Saurabh Kumar v. The State of UP and 2 Ors., Neutral Citation No. 2025:AHC:131125-DB, had quashed a Section 3 notice issued on the basis of two FIRs and a beat report, expressly deprecating the practice of initiating Goondas Act proceedings on such a thin evidentiary foundation.
Most recently, in Rahul v. State of UP Thr. Prin. Secy. Home Lko. and Others, 2026 SCC OnLine All 21744, the court had synthesised these principles into a set of eight propositions. Among them: one or two acts are not sufficient to establish habitual involvement; there must be a reasonable nexus between the accused’s conduct and its impact on society; the legislation is preventive, not punitive; and the Goondas Act is a powerful tool that “should be used very sparingly in very clear cases of public disorder.”
Applying this body of authority to Tyagi’s facts, Justice Jain noted two additional considerations. First, the two FIRs involved relatively minor offences. Second, there was a gap of three years between Case Crime No. 326 of 2022 and Case Crime No. 174 of 2025 — precisely the kind of temporal discontinuity that the court’s precedents say negates any inference of habitual conduct. The proceedings under the Act of 1970, the court held, could not be sustained.
A Warning to the Bureaucracy and the Award of Damages
Justice Jain did not confine himself to quashing the orders. He made pointed observations about the institutional conduct of the State machinery.
Despite the consistent and repeated position taken by the court that two cases cannot support a Goonda declaration, the bureaucracy had, the court found, “deliberately not noticed this” and continued to pass orders to the contrary. The result was a twofold injury: increased court pendency and individual suffering. The Goondas Act, Justice Jain observed, was being used as a tool of oppression contrary to its stated objects.
The court noted that it had until now refrained from imposing damages on the officials responsible for such orders. That restraint, Justice Jain held, would no longer be maintained. The time had come to send a strong message.
Accordingly, the court awarded Tyagi Rs 50,000 in damages for the suffering and agony caused by his being declared a Goonda. The State was permitted to recover this sum from the salaries of the concerned bureaucrats. The amount is to be paid within one month. If not paid within that period, the court noted that Tyagi would be at liberty to initiate recovery proceedings in accordance with law.
Order
Criminal Misc. Writ Petition No. 1903 of 2026 was allowed. The impugned order dated 18 September 2025 passed by the Additional Commissioner of Police, Commissionerate Ghaziabad, and the appellate order dated 10 December 2025 passed by the Commissioner, Meerut Division, were both quashed. Tyagi was awarded Rs 50,000 in damages, payable by the State within one month, with liberty to recover the amount from the salaries of the officials responsible for the impugned orders.