Supreme Court Quashes FIR Filed 23 Years After Complainant Knew of Alleged Fraud
A Division Bench of Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and R. Mahadevan held that a 23-year gap between a civil suit and a criminal complaint, left wholly unexplained, renders the FIR an abuse of process and a pressure tactic.
The Supreme Court on 25 March 2026 quashed FIR No.172 of 2024 registered at PS Gola, District Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, along with the chargesheet and cognizance order that followed it. The Court found that the complainant, respondent no.2 Khatoon Jahan, had full knowledge of the alleged forgery and impersonation since at least 2001 — when she herself filed a civil suit on the same facts — yet waited until 2024 to lodge a criminal complaint. That unexplained gap of over two decades, the Court held, was fatal to the bona fides of the prosecution. The Allahabad High Court's refusal to quash the proceedings under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 was set aside.
A Land Dispute With Decades of Parallel Litigation
The dispute centres on 13 acres of land in Lakhimpur Kheri, Uttar Pradesh. Respondent no.2 claimed that appellants Nazibul Rahim Khan, Javed Khan @ Bhullan, and Ajara Kulsum had, through a forged Power of Attorney, set up appellant no.3 as an impersonator of respondent no.2 and executed a Sale Deed dated 02.02.1996 in respect of her land.
As early as 2001, respondent no.2 filed Original Suit No.259 of 2001 seeking permanent injunction and cancellation of that Sale Deed and Power of Attorney. That suit was decreed ex parte on 01.04.2015; a recall application filed by the appellants in 2021 remains pending before the Trial Court.
The appellants, for their part, had filed FIR No.378 of 2002 in July 2002, alleging that it was respondent no.2 who had impersonated the real Khatoon Jahan — the widow of appellant no.1's cousin brother, Ajamat Ajeem Khan — and sold 13 acres of land that had devolved on that Khatoon Jahan. Police submitted a chargesheet in that FIR in February 2003. By 2024, respondent no.2 and her co-accused had not appeared before the Trial Court in that matter, prompting proceedings under Section 82 of the Code.
It was at this juncture, in March 2024, that respondent no.2 lodged FIR No.172 of 2024 under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, accusing the appellants of forging a Power of Attorney, selling her land through impersonation, and preparing her forged death certificate. A chargesheet followed on 03.05.2024. The Chief Judicial Magistrate, Lakhimpur Kheri, took cognizance and summoned the appellants on 09.08.2024.
The appellants moved the Allahabad High Court under Section 482 seeking quashing of the FIR, chargesheet, and cognizance order. The High Court dismissed the application on 09.07.2025, finding a prima facie case of cognizable offences. The appellants then approached the Supreme Court by way of Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No.12517 of 2025.
The Core Question: Why 23 Years of Silence?
Before the Supreme Court, the appellants argued that respondent no.2 had been aware of the alleged forgery since 2001 at the latest, given that her own civil suit was founded on those very facts. Filing a criminal case on the same set of facts only in 2024 — with no explanation for the gap — demonstrated mala fide intent. The appellants contended that FIR No.172 of 2024 was a direct counter-blast, timed to coincide with their pursuit of the recall application against the ex parte decree and their own FIR against respondent no.2.
The State of Uttar Pradesh opposed the appeal, urging that investigation had been completed and a chargesheet filed, and that the appellants should face trial.
Respondent no.2 argued that there is no strict limitation period for initiating criminal proceedings, and that as a childless widow aged about 80 years, she could not be expected to have acted contemporaneously. Her counsel also relied on Central Bureau of Investigation v Aryan Singh, (2023) 18 SCC 399, for the proposition that a High Court exercising Section 482 jurisdiction should not conduct a mini-trial and that defence submissions are for the trial stage.
The Court's Reasoning: Civil Suit as a Timestamp
The Court accepted that both civil and criminal proceedings can be maintained on the same cause of action and the same set of facts, citing S N Vijayalakshmi v State of Karnataka, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1575. That principle, however, came with a qualification the Court treated as decisive: “if the aggrieved person wishes to invoke civil as also criminal remedies, there should not be an unreasonable or inordinate gap between instituting the two.”
The Court reasoned that the filing of a civil suit itself signals an acceptance, at least to a degree, that the dispute involves civil elements requiring a full-fledged trial on evidence. That does not bar a subsequent criminal complaint, but the time-factor becomes a lens through which the Court must assess whether the criminal proceedings are genuine or are being used as a pressure tactic to extract relief that the civil proceedings have not delivered.
On the specific facts, the Court found the position stark. Respondent no.2 had alleged the same forged Power of Attorney and impersonation in OS No.259 of 2001. The FIR in 2024 repeated those allegations. The minimum gap was 23 years. No satisfactory explanation had been offered for that delay.
The Court also rejected the argument that respondent no.2's age and circumstances excused the delay. The record showed she had been actively assisted throughout the proceedings by her brother, Mr. Nazakat Ali, who appeared as PW-2. The Court observed that her age at the time of filing OS No.259 of 2001 was roughly 55 years, and she had been capable of pursuing civil litigation for over two decades.
The Court drew on Kishan Singh v Gurpal Singh, (2010) 8 SCC 775, where a two-judge bench had stated that in cases of delay in lodging an FIR, the court must look for a plausible explanation, and that in the absence of one, “a frustrated litigant who failed to succeed before the civil court may initiate criminal proceedings just to harass the other side.” The Court found that passage directly applicable.
The appellants had also relied on Mohammad Wajid v State of Uttar Pradesh, 2023 INSC 683, for the proposition that in frivolous or vexatious proceedings, a court exercising Section 482 jurisdiction is not confined to the averments in the FIR alone but must look at all attending circumstances and, if need be, read between the lines. The Court's analysis proceeded on that basis.
Why the High Court's Approach Was Found Wanting
The High Court had declined to interfere on the ground that commission of a cognizable offence by the appellants was prima facie made out. The Supreme Court held that this approach was erroneous in the context of the present facts. The question was not merely whether the FIR disclosed a cognizable offence on its face, but whether, viewed against the entire factual matrix — including the 23-year gap, the pre-existing civil suit on identical facts, the pending recall application, and the timing of the FIR relative to the Section 82 proceedings against respondent no.2 in the earlier FIR — the criminal proceedings could be said to be bona fide.
The Court found they could not. The confluence of circumstances — the long delay, the absence of any explanation, the active assistance respondent no.2 had received throughout, and the timing of the FIR — pointed to the criminal complaint being used as a counter-measure rather than a genuine invocation of criminal law.
The Court was careful to note that it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the pending litigations between the parties, including the recall application against the ex parte decree in OS No.259 of 2001. All courts seized of those matters were directed to proceed in accordance with law without being influenced by the Supreme Court's order.
Outcome
Criminal Appeal No.1627 of 2026 was allowed. The impugned judgment of the Allahabad High Court dated 09.07.2025 in Application Under Section 482 No.8164 of 2024 was set aside. FIR No.172 of 2024 registered at PS Gola, District Lakhimpur Kheri, dated 10.03.2024, was quashed. All subsequent and consequential actions, including the chargesheet dated 03.05.2024 and the cognizance and summons order dated 09.08.2024, were also quashed. The application for exemption from filing official translations, I.A. No.200931/2025, was allowed.