The Supreme Court has drawn a firm line under judicial finality, holding that a signed court order cannot be recalled merely because court staff recorded the result incorrectly. Setting aside a Patna High Court order, the Court said branding such a reversal as a “clerical error” stretches the law beyond recognition.
A Bench comprising Justices Aravind Kumar and Prasanna B. Varale was dealing with an unusual turn of events. The High Court had initially granted bail to an accused, only to withdraw it days later after the Court Master said he had mistakenly typed “allowed” instead of “rejected” in the operative portion of the order. The explanation offered was that the error occurred during a period of personal bereavement.
That reasoning did not impress the Supreme Court.
Referring to Section 362 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Court underlined that once a judgment or order is signed, it becomes immutable—except for the correction of a genuine clerical or arithmetical mistake. What happened here, the Bench said, was not a minor correction but a complete reversal of the outcome.
“There was no clerical or arithmetical error that had crept in,” the Court observed, adding that recalling a bail order in this manner is “impermissible in law” and cannot stand “even for a moment.”
The case itself arose from an FIR lodged in October 2024 after police allegedly seized over six kilograms of ganja from a man stopped on a motorcycle. During questioning, the co-accused claimed the contraband had been given by his father for delivery to another person, Rambali Sahni. Sahni was implicated solely on the strength of that statement.
The Patna High Court granted Sahni bail on August 27, 2025. Three days later, the order was recalled on the premise that the result had been wrongly typed. The Supreme Court found this approach legally untenable.
On the merits as well, the Bench noted that the appellant’s involvement rested only on the statement of a co-accused, with no independent material pointing to his role.
Allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court’s recall order and directed that the appellant be released on anticipatory bail, subject to conditions to be fixed by the investigating authority.
The ruling reinforces a clear message: administrative lapses cannot be used to undo judicial decisions once they have been formally pronounced and signed.
