A single word flipped the fate of an accused—and the Supreme Court has now flipped it back.
The top court has restored anticipatory bail to a man after finding that the Patna High Court cancelled the relief because of an internal drafting mistake, not a legal flaw. The reversal, the Supreme Court said, crossed a line the law does not permit.
The case arose from an order where a court staffer typed “allowed” instead of “rejected” in the operative portion of a bail decision. Acting on the claim that the word was inserted in error, the High Court recalled its own order granting bail just days after it was signed.
That recall did not survive scrutiny in New Delhi.
A Bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and P.B. Varale held that once a judicial order is signed, Section 362 of the Criminal Procedure Code places a near-total bar on revisiting it. Only minor clerical or arithmetical slips can be corrected. What happened here, the Court said, was something far more serious.
Recalling the order effectively meant undoing a decision already taken—a step the law simply does not allow.
The Supreme Court was unequivocal. There was no clerical or mathematical error in the sense recognised by law. Yet the High Court reversed a bail order that had already come into force. Such an exercise, the Bench observed, was impermissible and unsustainable.
The controversy traces back to an October 2024 case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Police intercepted a motorcycle and allegedly recovered over six kilograms of ganja. The rider claimed the substance was meant to be delivered to Rambali Sahni, leading to Sahni being named as an accused.
Sahni was granted anticipatory bail by the Patna High Court on August 27, 2025. Three days later, the relief was withdrawn after the court noted the staffer’s explanation for the incorrect word in the order, accompanied by an unconditional apology.
Challenging that recall, Sahni moved the Supreme Court.
Apart from faulting the recall itself, the apex court also looked at the substance of the allegations. It noted that Sahni’s name surfaced only through the statement of a co-accused and that his actual involvement would have to be tested at trial.
On that footing, the Court concluded that he was entitled to the protection of bail.
The recall order was set aside, the original bail restored, and Sahni was directed to be released on anticipatory bail on conditions to be settled during investigation.
In the end, the case turned on a typo—but the ruling turned on principle: once a court speaks through a signed order, it cannot take its words back simply because someone typed the wrong one.
