Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – ss.482, 362 – Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 – ss.528, 403 – Saving of inherent power of High Court – Court not to alter judgment – Writ petition by the complainant for transfer of investigation of the FIR lodged by him, dismissed as withdrawn – Complainant filed second petition with identical prayers which was disposed of by a reasoned order – Said order recalled and reviewed by the High Court – Sustainability:
Held: Criminal Court has no power to recall or review its own judgment – Only permissible action is to correct or rectify clerical errors by virtue of s.403 BNSS [s.362 CrPC] – On facts, once the Writ Petition preferred by the complainant with identical prayers had been dismissed as withdrawn, without there being any liberty to approach the High Court again for seeking self-same relief, the subsequent petition could not have been entertained under the garb of exercise of inherent jurisdiction u/s.528 BNSS [s.482 CrPC] – Attempt so made was nothing but a change in the label of the petition with the substance being the same – From a bare perusal of the order passed in the second writ petition, it is crystal clear that the said order did not suffer from any clerical error so as to justify the invocation of jurisdiction by the High Court to recall or review the same – Observations made by Single Judge in the recall order that a clerical mistake occurred while passing the earlier order is not borne out from the record because the said order was passed after considering the entirety of facts and circumstances prevailing on record – No apparent or manifest error what to say of clerical error in the said order which could justify the recalling or modification thereof – As a matter of fact, once the writ petition filed by the complainant had been dismissed, another petition seeking the same relief, styling it to be a petition u/s.528 BNSS [s.482 CrPC], could not have been entertained – Only remedy available to the complainant in such circumstances would be to assail the order dismissed as withdrawn as per law – Thus, the impugned orders do not stand to scrutiny and are quashed – However, the complainant given liberty to take recourse to the suitable remedy for challenging the said orders. [Paras 25-27]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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