33 kg silver returned? No. But the clock starts when you file, not when court acts

He handed over 33 kg of silver. When he asked for it back, the other man said no. Three years later, he filed a complaint. The accused thought he was safe because the court took too long to act.

On 4 October 2009, Amritlal walked up to Shantilal Soni and asked for his silver back — roughly 33 kilograms of it, entrusted earlier. The weight of the bars, the clink of metal, the trust that had been placed — all of it hung in the air as Shantilal refused. That refusal, on that single day, was the moment the alleged crime of criminal breach of trust was committed. For the next three years, no courtroom stirred. No complaint was filed. No magistrate moved. Then, on 10 July 2012, Amritlal finally walked into a police station and filed a written complaint — the counter worn smooth by countless hands, the smell of old paper and ink, the slow turning of a register. An FIR was registered. Police investigated. A charge-sheet was filed on 13 November 2012. The Magistrate took cognizance (formally accepted the case for trial) on 4 December 2012.

Shantilal's lawyers saw their opening. The offence had occurred on 4 October 2009. The Magistrate had taken cognizance on 4 December 2012 — more than three years later. Under Section 468 of the CrPC (the law that bars a court from taking a case after the limitation period expires), the limitation period for this type of offence was three years. The accused argued: the clock ran out. The case should be thrown out.

When the High Court agreed with the accused

The Trial Court and the Sessions Court both rejected this argument. The first revision petition — Criminal Revision No. 288/2013 — was dismissed by the Additional Sessions Judge, Khachrod, on 27 July 2015. The accused then filed an application under Section 468 CrPC directly before the Trial Magistrate, which was rejected on 17 August 2017. A second revision — Criminal Revision No. 181/2017 — was dismissed by the Additional Sessions Judge on 20 February 2018, affirming the Trial Court's order. Each time, the courtroom fell silent as the judge read the order, the file thin with repeated arguments. The accused's plea was consistent: the Magistrate's cognizance on 4 December 2012 fell outside the three-year window from 4 October 2009, and therefore the entire prosecution was barred by limitation. The Trial Court and Sessions Court, however, found no merit in this line of reasoning at either stage.

But the Madhya Pradesh High Court, exercising its powers under Section 482 CrPC (the High Court's inherent power to prevent abuse of its process), agreed with Shantilal. On 6 March 2019, the High Court quashed the entire criminal proceedings. The court held that the relevant date for computing limitation was the date the Magistrate took cognizance — 4 December 2012. Since that fell beyond three years from 4 October 2009, the prosecution was time-barred. The courtroom, perhaps, fell into a deeper silence as the order was pronounced — the accused's lawyers relieved, the complainant's side stunned. The High Court's reasoning was straightforward: the language of Section 468 CrPC bars a court from taking cognizance after the limitation period expires; therefore, the date of cognizance was the only relevant date. In doing so, the High Court set aside the orders of the Trial Court and the Sessions Court.

Amritlal appealed to the Supreme Court. The question was deceptively simple: when does the three-year clock stop — on the day you file your complaint, or on the day the court finally gets around to accepting it?

The Constitution Bench answer that settled it

The Supreme Court did not write new law here. It reached back to a Constitution Bench decision from 2014: Sarah Mathew v. Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases. In that case, a five-judge bench had directly answered the same question. The Court held that for computing limitation under Section 468 CrPC, the relevant date is the date of filing of the complaint or the date of institution of prosecution — not the date on which the Magistrate takes cognizance. The Supreme Court in Amritlal v. Shantilal Soni applied this binding precedent. The justices — Dinesh Maheshwari and Vikram Nath — stated in their ratio: "For computing the period of limitation under Section 468 CrPC, the relevant date is the date of filing of the complaint or the date of institution of prosecution, and not the date on which the Magistrate takes cognizance of the offence." The words hung in the air, settling the dispute with finality.

Amritlal had filed his complaint on 10 July 2012. The offence had occurred on 4 October 2009. That was within three years. The prosecution was timely. The High Court had erred by computing limitation from the date of cognizance instead. The Supreme Court relied on the Constitution Bench's interpretation of Section 468 CrPC read with Chapter XXXVI of the Code (the chapter governing limitation for taking cognizance of certain offences). The logic is straightforward. A complainant does not control how fast a magistrate acts. The court's docket, the judge's availability, the administrative machinery — none of these are in the hands of the person who has been wronged. If the limitation clock kept ticking until cognizance, a slow court could destroy a timely complaint. The Constitution Bench had rejected that reading.

The Court also drew support from a series of precedents that reinforced this position. In Bharat Damodar Kale v. State of A.P., the Supreme Court had held that the date of filing of the complaint is the relevant date for computing limitation. In Japani Sahoo v. Chandra Sekhar Mohanty, the Court reiterated that the purpose of limitation provisions is to ensure that prosecutions are initiated within a reasonable time, and that this purpose is served by looking at the date of initiation of proceedings, not the date of cognizance. In Krishna Pillai v. T.A. Rajendran, the Court emphasised that the limitation period must be computed from the date of the offence to the date of filing of the complaint. And in State of Punjab v. Sarwan Singh, the Court had laid down the principle that limitation provisions must be interpreted in a manner that advances the cause of justice rather than defeating it. Together, these decisions formed a wall of precedent that left no room for doubt.

Why the binding effect of a Constitution Bench cannot be questioned

The accused's lawyers tried one more argument. They suggested that the Constitution Bench in Sarah Mathew had not considered certain aspects of the limitation provisions. The Supreme Court shut this down firmly. The Court cited Somawanti v. State of Punjab to reinforce the principle: a decision of a Constitution Bench is binding regardless of whether every possible argument was raised or considered. What matters is that the point was actually decided. And it was. The Court noted that the binding effect of a Supreme Court decision does not depend on whether a particular argument was considered, provided the point was actually decided. The Constitution Bench in Sarah Mathew had directly decided that the date of filing of the complaint, not the date of cognizance, is the relevant date for computing limitation under Section 468 CrPC. No subsequent argument about different interpretations could undo that binding effect.

The ratio decidendi of Amritlal v. Shantilal Soni is therefore twofold. First, for computing the period of limitation under Section 468 CrPC, the relevant date is the date of filing of the complaint or the date of institution of prosecution, and not the date on which the Magistrate takes cognizance of the offence. Second, a decision of the Constitution Bench cannot be questioned on suggestions about different interpretation; the binding effect of a Supreme Court decision does not depend on whether a particular argument was considered, provided the point was actually decided.

What this means for every criminal case

For practitioners, the rule is now settled beyond doubt: file your complaint within the limitation period. Do not wait for the magistrate to act. The date of filing — not the date of cognizance — is what saves your case from being time-barred. For the accused, this means that a delay in court proceedings does not automatically give you a limitation defence. The clock stops when the complainant walks into the police station or the magistrate's court, not when the judge signs the order. The procedural journey in this case — from the FIR and charge-sheet filed on 13 November 2012 before the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Khachrod, District Ujjain, to the cognizance taken on 4 December 2012, to the charges framed on 12 September 2013, to the two unsuccessful revision petitions in 2015 and 2018, to the High Court's quashing order on 6 March 2019, and finally to the Supreme Court's restoration on 28 February 2022 — illustrates the long and winding path that a limitation dispute can take. At every stage, the accused raised the same argument: the cognizance was time-barred. At every stage except the High Court, the argument failed. And at the Supreme Court, the law was reaffirmed.

THE PLAY: File your complaint or police report within the limitation period — the date of filing, not the date of court cognizance, is what counts under Section 468 CrPC.

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal. The impugned order dated 6 March 2019 was set aside. The petition filed before the High Court — Miscellaneous Criminal Case No. 26287 of 2018 — was dismissed. The Trial Magistrate was directed to proceed with the trial expeditiously. The parties were ordered to appear before the JMFC Khachrod on 1 April 2022. The silver stayed in the courtroom, its weight now a matter for the trial, not for the clock.