The Supreme Court has clarified that the statutory bar on altering or reviewing a signed criminal judgment cannot be used to prevent a High Court from exercising its inherent powers where an order has produced a miscarriage of justice.
Section 362 of the Code of Criminal Procedure generally prohibits criminal courts from altering or reviewing a judgment once it has been signed, except for correcting clerical or arithmetical mistakes. However, the Supreme Court held that this restriction does not erase the High Court’s inherent authority to recall an order that was passed without jurisdiction.
The ruling came while allowing an appeal filed by Mahavir alias Avnish, who was later found to have been a juvenile on the date of the alleged offence but had nevertheless been tried, convicted and sentenced by an ordinary criminal court.
A Bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandshekhar set aside a 2018 decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s Gwalior Bench, which had refused to reopen Mahavir’s conviction on the ground that the judgment had attained finality.
Mahavir had been convicted under Section 201 Part II of the Indian Penal Code for causing the disappearance of evidence in a case concerning the deaths of a woman and her infant daughter. Charges relating to murder and dowry death were not established, but Mahavir and other accused were convicted under Section 201 Part II.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld his conviction in 2017.
Mahavir later moved the High Court under Section 482 CrPC, seeking recall of the appellate judgment after raising the plea that he had been a juvenile at the time of the offence.
The High Court ordered an inquiry by the Juvenile Justice Board. After examining school records, a birth certificate and other material, the Board determined that Mahavir was born on July 1, 1987.
The offence had taken place on September 13, 2004, meaning he was 17 years, two months and 12 days old at the relevant time.
Despite this finding, the High Court declined to reopen the conviction, holding that the matter had already reached finality.
The Supreme Court disagreed.
It found that the High Court had committed what it described as an “error of record” while concluding that Mahavir’s conviction had attained finality before the Supreme Court.
On examining the earlier proceedings, the Bench noted that the special leave petitions filed by Mahavir’s parents had been considered on merits, with relief granted in relation to their sentences. Mahavir’s own petition, however, had merely been dismissed as withdrawn and had not been decided on merits.
The Supreme Court said it did not make sense to assume that Mahavir would have withdrawn his petition without any reason when his parents had obtained relief. His explanation that he withdrew the petition to pursue his claim of juvenility before the High Court, therefore, appeared credible.
Section 362 Cannot Override the High Court’s Inherent Powers
The Bench drew a distinction between reviewing or altering a valid judgment and recalling an order that should never have stood in the first place because it was rendered without jurisdiction or in circumstances that caused a fundamental injustice.
While Section 362 CrPC places restrictions on a court’s power to alter or review its judgment, the Supreme Court held that the provision cannot be interpreted so rigidly that it defeats the very purpose of justice.
The Court observed that the statutory bar would not apply where the order or judgment under consideration had been passed without jurisdiction. In such situations, the High Court could invoke its inherent powers under Section 482 CrPC to recall the order.
“The provisions under section 362 cannot be considered in a rigid or overtechnical manner to defeat the ends of justice. The bar of section 362 of the Code of Criminal Procedure shall not operate in cases where the order or judgment under consideration was without jurisdiction and inherent power of the High Court can be exercised to recall such orders,” the Bench held.
The Supreme Court further emphasised that a finding of juvenility goes to the very foundation of the criminal proceedings. A person who was legally a child on the date of the offence could not simply be treated as an adult offender because the issue had been discovered at a later stage.
The decision reinforces that procedural finality cannot become a shield for an order that has resulted in a fundamental failure of justice. Where jurisdiction itself is in question, the High Court’s inherent powers remain available to prevent an unjust result from being allowed to stand.
The Supreme Court consequently overturned the High Court’s refusal to recall the judgment and granted relief in Mahavir’s case.
