Two Criminal Cases Not Enough to Brand Someone a Goonda, Rules Allahabad HC Lucknow Bench

Justice Subhash Vidyarthi quashed a Goonda Act externment order against Rahul Saroj, holding that involvement in two criminal cases does not establish habitual offending under Section 2(b) of the U.P. Control of Goondas Act, 1970.

The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has quashed an order declaring petitioner Rahul @ Rahul Saroj a “Goonda” under the U.P. Control of Goondas Act, 1970, finding that his registration in two criminal cases — one from 2021 and another from 2025 — could not satisfy the statutory requirement of habitual offending. Justice Subhash Vidyarthi, sitting singly at Court No. 14, allowed the writ petition on 8 July 2026, holding that the Additional District Magistrate's order and the Commissioner's appellate order were both unsustainable in law. The judgment consolidates a line of coordinate Bench decisions from this Court on what “habitually” means in the Goonda Act definition, and firmly rejects the use of beat information reports, filed without any complaint or investigation, as a ground for branding a person a Goonda.

The Orders Challenged

On 25 February 2026, the Additional District Magistrate, Finance and Revenue, Amethi, passed an order in Case No. 730 of 2025 under Section 3/4 of the U.P. Control of Goondas Act, 1970, declaring Rahul Saroj a Goonda. The ADM relied on two criminal cases against him: Case Crime No. 343 of 2021 under Sections 376 and 306 IPC at Police Station Musafirkhana, and Case Crime No. 57 of 2025 under Sections 115(2), 352, 351 and 317(2) of the BNS at the same police station. The order also referred to two beat information reports dated 13 April 2025 and 14 April 2025, and a prohibitory report dated 14 April 2025.

Rahul Saroj challenged the ADM's order by filing Appeal No. 994 of 2026 under Section 6 of the Goonda Act. The Commissioner, Ayodhya Division, dismissed the appeal on 6 May 2026. Both the original order and the appellate order were assailed in the criminal miscellaneous writ petition before the High Court.

What the U.P. Control of Goondas Act Requires

The U.P. Control of Goondas Act, 1970 is a preventive law that empowers executive authorities to extern persons classified as Goondas from a district. Section 3 authorises the District Magistrate to issue an externment order, and Section 4 contains related procedural provisions. The critical gateway is the definition in Section 2(b), which sets out six categories of persons who qualify as a Goonda.

The first category, Section 2(b)(i), is the one the ADM invoked against Rahul Saroj. It covers a person who “either by himself or as a member or leader of a gang, habitually commits or attempts to commit, or abets the commission of” offences under specified chapters of the Indian Penal Code, including Chapters XV, XVI, XVII and XXII. The word “habitually” sits at the centre of the dispute in this case.

Counsel's Submission and the Coordinating Bench Decisions

Ms. Nisha Srivastava, counsel for the petitioner, argued that involvement in one case from 2021 and another from 2025 does not make a person a habitual offender. She placed reliance on two decisions of coordinate Benches: Parvindra v. State of U.P. (2020 SCC OnLine All 51) and Bharat Singh v. State of U.P. and 3 Ors. (2023:AHC:171107).

Shri Vishal Agarwal, the learned Additional Government Advocate, appeared for the State.

Justice Vidyarthi surveyed a wider set of authorities to arrive at a consolidated statement of principle. The first was a Division Bench ruling in Imran Alias Abdul Quddus Khan v. State of U.P. and Ors. (1999 SCC OnLine All 1636), which had traced the meaning of “habitually commits” to the Supreme Court's decision in Vijay Narain Singh v. State of Bihar (1984) 3 SCC 14. The Division Bench had held that the majority view in Vijay Narain Singh was that “habitually” means “repeatedly” or “persistently”, connoting a thread of continuity stringing together similar repetitive acts, and that a single act cannot be said to form the habit of a person.

The Court also drew on Shankar Ji Shukla v. Ayuqt Allahabad Mandal and Ors. (2005) 52 ACC 633, which applied the same standard and held that one or two acts of the accused are not sufficient. A coordinate Bench in Lalani Pandey @ Vijay Shankar Pandey v. State of U.P. (2010 SCC OnLine All 2411) had similarly ruled that “one or two criminal cases against a person will not be sufficient to hold him that he is habitually involved in commission of such offences and he is a 'goonda'.”

On the dimension of reputation, Justice Vidyarthi quoted from Pavan v. State of U.P. (2021 SCC OnLine All 231), where a coordinate Bench had described externment as “stigmatic” and had held that the right to one's reputation is a facet of the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. That Bench had observed that an externment order works as “an innate declaration that the person externed is a goonda” and that its reputational consequences are timeless, far outlasting the six-month period of physical externment.

A Division Bench in Govardhan v. State of U.P. (2023 SCC OnLine All 780) had added that executive authorities must be “doubly sure” about an individual's past image and credentials before proceeding under the Goonda Act, and that “trivial and insignificant offences having one or two in number would not make the person branded as a 'Goonda'.” The same line had been followed in Satendra v. State of U.P. (2026 SCC OnLine All 3129).

From Bharat Singh v. State of U.P. (2023:AHC:171107), Justice Vidyarthi extracted the requirement that “there must be reasonable nexus between the act of the accused and its impact on the society” and that “there must not be time gap between the proceedings under this Act and the acts said to be committed by the accused.”

How the Bench Reasoned

Drawing together these authorities, Justice Vidyarthi distilled eight principles that govern the use of the Goonda Act. The core propositions are: the word “habitually” requires repeated, persistent, and similar — not isolated or dissimilar — acts to justify an inference of habit; one or two criminal cases are not sufficient; there must be a reasonable temporal nexus between the acts and the externment proceedings; the facts must show that by confirmed habit the person is sure to commit further offences if not externed; and the Act is preventive, not punitive, to be used sparingly only in clear cases of threat to public order.

The Court then applied these principles to the facts. Rahul Saroj was already facing prosecution in the two criminal cases. He was not beyond the reach of ordinary penal law. There was no allegation that he posed a threat to the maintenance of public order — a distinct and higher threshold from individual criminal conduct. The ADM had declared him a Goonda solely on the basis of the two cases, without any material showing habitual conduct.

On the beat information reports, Justice Vidyarthi was equally firm. The reports dated 13 and 14 April 2025, and the prohibitory report of 14 April 2025, had been filed without any complaint from a member of the public. No investigation followed the beat reports, and no prima facie satisfaction regarding commission of an offence had been recorded. Critically, the petitioner had no opportunity to rebut the contents of those reports. In those circumstances, the Court held that the beat reports could not provide a valid ground for the Goonda declaration.

On the Stigma of Being Labelled a Goonda

Justice Vidyarthi's judgment echoes a consistent concern running through the cited coordinate Bench decisions: that the Goonda label carries severe reputational consequences that extend well beyond any period of externment. The Pavan decision, extensively quoted, had described the order as “irreversibly ruinous” of reputation. The Govardhan Division Bench had warned that carelessly branding a person a Goonda causes “irreparable damage to his name and reputation of his family.”

The Imran Division Bench had drawn a sharp boundary: the Act is “a powerful tool for the control and suppression of the 'Goondas'; it should be used very sparingly in very clear cases of 'public disorder'.” It is not intended to secure indirectly a conviction where a prosecution for a substantial offence is likely to fail, and must not become an engine of oppression.

Justice Vidyarthi's synthesis of these authorities into eight numbered principles gives the judgment value as a reference point for future Goonda Act challenges before this Court. The principles address the meaning of “habitual”, the insufficiency of isolated cases, the nexus requirement, the confirmatory habit test, the preventive — not punitive — character of the legislation, and the need to deploy the Act sparingly.

Outcome

Justice Subhash Vidyarthi allowed the writ petition on 8 July 2026. The order dated 25 February 2026 passed by the Additional District Magistrate, Finance and Revenue, Amethi in Case No. 730 of 2025 under Section 3/4 of the U.P. Control of Goondas Act, 1970, declaring Rahul @ Rahul Saroj a Goonda, was quashed. The appellate order dated 6 May 2026 passed by the Commissioner, Ayodhya Division, Ayodhya, affirming that declaration, was also quashed.