Criminal Complaint Filed as Retaliatory Counterblast to Earlier FIR Is Abuse of Process; High Court Must ‘Read Between the Lines’ Where Criminal Proceedings Appear Vexatious: Supreme Court Quashes Proceedings Against Entire Family
Case Name: Anita Maurya & Others v. State of Uttar Pradesh & Another
Date of Judgment: 23 July 2026
Citation: 2026 INSC 806
Bench: Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Augustine George Masih
Held: The Supreme Court held that while the inherent power under Section 528 BNSS, corresponding to Section 482 CrPC, must be exercised sparingly, the High Court cannot restrict itself mechanically to the allegations in the complaint where the record discloses mala fides or abuse of process. Courts are entitled and where circumstances demand, obliged to examine the surrounding circumstances and “read between the lines”. A belated complaint arising from an essentially civil dispute, suppressing an earlier FIR and chargesheet concerning the same incident and exhibiting the character of a retaliatory counterblast, can be quashed at the threshold. On the cumulative facts, the Court held that the proceedings fell within Categories (1), (5) and (7) of State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal.
Summary: The dispute arose between two branches of a family over land. On 9 November 2020, appellant Sunil Maurya lodged an FIR against the complainant and others for offences including assault and wrongful confinement. The police filed a chargesheet on 30 November 2020 and trial commenced. Subsequently, in 2021, the complainant instituted a private complaint concerning the same incident, accusing all eight appellants, including three women, of assault and house-trespass, without disclosing the earlier FIR or chargesheet.
The Magistrate summoned the appellants, and both the Revisional Court and the Allahabad High Court declined to interfere. The High Court treated the appellants’ objections as disputed factual questions appropriate for trial and left them to seek discharge. Before the Supreme Court, the appellants contended that the complaint was a delayed counterblast intended to harass the entire family in what was fundamentally a civil land dispute.
The Supreme Court found the chronology significant. The appellants’ FIR had been lodged on the very day of the occurrence and had already culminated in a chargesheet, whereas the complainant’s version surfaced only later without any satisfactory explanation for the delay. More importantly, the complaint suppressed the existence of the earlier criminal proceedings. The Court held that such suppression, coupled with institution of proceedings against the entire opposing family, bore the clear characteristics of a retaliatory counterblast and indicated want of bona fides.
The Court further noted that the underlying controversy was a longstanding land dispute which the complainant had earlier pursued even through public law proceedings. Allowing a belated and suppressive criminal complaint to proceed in such circumstances would permit an essentially civil dispute to be converted into an instrument of criminal harassment. The Magistrate’s summoning of the entire family also failed to demonstrate the careful application of mind required before issuance of criminal process.
Decision: The Supreme Court allowed the appeal, set aside the High Court order and quashed Complaint Case No. 909 of 2021, the summoning order and all consequential proceedings against the appellants. It clarified that its observations would not affect the merits of FIR No. 405 of 2020, the connected chargesheet or the underlying civil dispute, all of which would be decided independently in accordance with law.