He wanted his silver back. The accused said: too late. The Supreme Court disagreed.

A man entrusted 33 kg of silver to a friend. When he asked for it back, the friend refused. The accused then argued: the case is time-barred.

The refusal came on 4 October 2009. Amritlal had handed over 33 kilograms of silver to Shantilal Soni — no receipt, no contract, just trust. When he asked for it back, Shantilal said no. That single sentence, spoken on an October morning, would take twelve years and three courts to resolve. The question at the heart of it: when does the clock on a criminal case actually start?

Three years of silence

Amritlal did not go to the police that day. He waited. For nearly three years, he waited. On 10 July 2012, he finally filed a written complaint. An FIR was registered. The police investigated. On 13 November 2012, a charge-sheet was filed accusing Shantilal Soni and others of criminal breach of trust (Section 406 IPC — the offence of dishonestly misappropriating property entrusted to you) and criminal conspiracy (Section 120-B IPC — an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime).

The Judicial Magistrate First Class at Khachrod, in Ujjain district, took cognizance of the case on 4 December 2012. Cognizance is the formal step where a magistrate acknowledges that a case has sufficient grounds to proceed. Charges were framed on 12 September 2013. The trial was underway.

Then the accused made their move.

"The magistrate acted three years and two months later"

Shantilal Soni and the other accused argued that the entire prosecution was time-barred. They pointed to Section 468 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 — a provision that bars a court from taking cognizance of an offence after a specified period of limitation has expired. For offences punishable with imprisonment of three years or more but less than life imprisonment, the limitation period is three years.

The accused's logic was straightforward: the offence occurred on 4 October 2009. The magistrate took cognizance on 4 December 2012. That is three years and two months later. Beyond the three-year limit. Case closed.

The trial court rejected this argument. So did the Additional Sessions Judge on revision. But the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, sitting at Indore, agreed with the accused. On 6 March 2019, the High Court quashed the proceedings under Section 482 CrPC (the High Court's inherent power to prevent abuse of its process). The case was dead.

Amritlal appealed to the Supreme Court.

"Count to the complaint, not to the cognizance"

The Supreme Court bench — Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice Vikram Nath — heard the appeal on 28 February 2022. The question before them was narrow but critical: for computing limitation under Section 468 CrPC, which date matters — the date the complaint was filed, or the date the magistrate took cognizance?

The answer, the court found, had already been settled by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court itself. In Sarah Mathew v. Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases (2014) 2 SCC 62, a five-judge bench had held unequivocally: 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 logic is simple but profound. The magistrate's act of taking cognizance is a judicial function. It is not something the complainant controls. If the limitation clock kept ticking until cognizance, a complainant could do everything right — file on time, submit evidence, cooperate with police — and still lose because the magistrate's docket was slow. That would be unjust.

In Amritlal's case, the complaint was filed on 10 July 2012. The offence occurred on 4 October 2009. That is two years, nine months, and six days. Well within the three-year limit.

The High Court had made a fundamental error. It had counted from the offence date to the cognizance date — three years and two months — and concluded the case was barred. But the law required counting to the complaint date.

"Fundamentally wrong"

The Supreme Court did not mince words. The High Court's reasoning was "fundamentally wrong." The bench noted that a decision of a Constitution Bench cannot be questioned on suggestions about different interpretations of the provisions under consideration. The binding effect of a Supreme Court decision does not depend on whether a particular argument was considered, provided the point with reference to which the argument is advanced was actually decided.

The court also referred to its earlier decisions in Bharat Damodar Kale v. State of A.P. (2003) 8 SCC 559 and Japani Sahoo v. Chandra Sekhar Mohanty (2007) 7 SCC 394, both of which had applied the same principle: the date of filing, not the date of cognizance, is the relevant date for limitation.

The appeal was allowed. The High Court's order was set aside. The trial magistrate was directed to proceed with the case expeditiously. The parties were ordered to appear before the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Khachrod on 1 April 2022.

THE PLAY: When computing limitation under Section 468 CrPC, always count from the date of the offence to the date the complaint was filed in court — not to the date the magistrate took cognizance.

The silver was never returned. But the law gave Amritlal his day in court.