SC Slams Allahabad HC Judge for Misusing Criminal Law to Settle Civil Disputes

The Supreme Court yesterday directed the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court to immediately withdraw the present determination of Justice Prashant Kumar.

The concerned judge should be made to sit in a division bench with a seasoned senior judge of the High Court, a bench of Justices Pardiwala and R Mahadevan went on to direct.

This order came to be passed by the High Court while hearing a challenge to a judgment passed by Justice Kumar wherein he had said that "asking the complainant to pursue civil remedies for the purpose of recovery of his balance amount will be very unreasonable as civil suit may take a long time".

Justice Kumar had gone on to say that the complainant should be permitted to institute criminal proceedings for the purpose of recovery of the balance account.

Taking note of these observations, Justice Pardiwala expressed his shock and ordered, "This is the understanding of the High Court judge that even ultimately, rightly or wrongly, the accused is convicted, trial court will award complainant the balance amount. The findings recorded in para 12 are shocking. We are left with no other option, but to set aside this order even without issuing notice to the respondents. In the result, we partly allow this petition and set aside the impugned order passed by the High Court. We remand matter to the High Court for fresh consideration".

Court went on to direct the Chief Justice of the High Court to assign the instant matter to any other judge of the High Court.

"Further, we request the honorable chief justice to immediately withdraw the present determination of the concerned judge. The concerned judge should be made to sit in a division bench with a seasoned senior judge of the High Court. In any view of the matter, the concerned judge shall not be assigned any criminal determination till he demits Office. If at all, at some point of time, he is made to be sit as a single judge he shall not be assigned any criminal determination", the supreme court has further said.

The Registry was also directed to forward one copy of this order to the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court at the earliest.

Before the High Court, one M/s Shikhar Chemicals had filed an application under Section 482 Cr.P.C. with a prayer to quash summoning order passed in a case under section 406 IPC or to stay the further proceedings of aforesaid case during the pendency of the present application. Justice Kumar noted that in the case, admittedly goods were supplied and payment was not made. "To be more precise, last payment was made on 11.04.2019 and for the last six years, no payment was made, hence, there is claim of total outstanding amount of 7,23,711/-....", he noted in the judgment.

While dismissing the application filed to quash the summoning order, Justice Kumar had noted, "O.P. no.2 appears to be a very small business firm and for him, the aforesaid amount along with interest is a huge amount. In case, subject to filing civil suit, O.P. no.2 will not be in position to pursue the civil litigation. In case, O.P. no.2 files a civil suit firstly, it will take years for it to see any ray of hope and secondly, he will have to put more money to pursue the litigation. To be more precise it would seem like good money chasing bad money. If this Court allows the matter to be referred to civil court on account of civil dispute between the parties, it would amount to travesty of justice and O.P. no.2 would suffer irreparable loss and he might even not be in a position to emerge from the financial constraints to pursue the matter. In view of aforesaid discussions as well as the settled principles of law laid down by Hon'ble Apex Court as enumerated above, I see no illegality in the impugned summoning order. The instant application lacks merit and is, accordingly, dismissed.".

Case Title: M/s Shikhar Chemicals vs. State of U.P. and Another

Bench: Justices Pardiwala and Mahadevan

Hearing Date: August 4, 2025