Police closed his case. The magistrate reopened it. The High Court shut it down. Now the Supreme Court has the final word.

Police filed a closure report. The magistrate said: not so fast. He took cognizance on the original complaint. The High Court struck it down. Now the Supreme Court has restored it.

It began with sharp weapons on an evening in August 2017. The appellant-complainant and his family were attacked — allegedly by several persons carrying sharp weapons, the result of an old enmity. The injuries were serious. The complainant went to the police station and lodged an FIR (a written complaint that starts a police investigation) under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code: Sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with deadly weapons), 149 (unlawful assembly), 307 (attempt to murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt with dangerous weapons), and 504 (intentional insult to provoke breach of peace). The FIR register, a thick ledger of lined pages, recorded the crime as Case No. 907/2017.

The police investigated. Three months later, in November 2017, the investigating officer submitted a Final Report — a closure report — finding insufficient evidence. The case, the police said, should go no further.

But the complainant was not done.

When the magistrate refused to close the file

Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, a complainant who disagrees with a police closure report can file a Protest Petition before the magistrate. The complainant did exactly that. He went to the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) and said: the police got it wrong. The attack happened. The evidence exists.

The CJM had three options — a choice that would become the central legal question in this case. First, he could accept the police report and drop the matter. Second, he could take cognizance (formally take notice of the case) on the police report itself under Section 190(1)(b) CrPC and issue summons to the accused. Third — and this was the option he chose — he could take cognizance under Section 190(1)(a) CrPC on the original complaint filed by the complainant, treating the Protest Petition as a fresh complaint case.

On November 15, 2018, the CJM rejected the police closure report. He treated the complainant's Protest Petition as a complaint case. Then, following the procedure laid down in Sections 200 and 202 CrPC, he recorded the statements of the complainant and eight witnesses. The stack of witness statements sat on the CJM's desk, each page bearing a thumbprint or signature, a record of the complainant's persistence. After satisfying himself that there was a prima facie case (enough evidence on the surface to proceed), he issued summons to the accused on January 11, 2022.

The case was alive again.

The High Court steps in

The accused did not take this lying down. They approached the Allahabad High Court under Section 482 CrPC — the High Court's inherent power to intervene in cases where a lower court's order is alleged to be an abuse of process or where justice requires interference. They also obtained permission to challenge the earlier order rejecting the Final Report.

The High Court agreed with the accused. On July 22, 2022, it set aside both of the CJM's orders — the one from November 2018 rejecting the closure report, and the one from January 2022 issuing summons. The High Court held that the magistrate had failed to follow the proper procedure. Specifically, the court said the CJM should have proceeded under Section 190(1)(b) CrPC (cognizance on a police report) rather than under Section 190(1)(a) (cognizance on a complaint). The High Court relied on its reading of the precedent in Hari Ram to say that the magistrate's approach was legally flawed.

The complainant was back where he started. The closure report was effectively restored. The accused were off the hook.

Why the Supreme Court disagreed

The complainant appealed to the Supreme Court of India. The case landed before a bench of Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Dipankar Datta. On August 29, 2023, the court delivered its judgment — and it was a decisive reversal. The courtroom fell silent as the judgment was read, the weight of the two-year legal battle settling on the bench.

The Supreme Court held that the High Court had fundamentally misunderstood the law. The magistrate's third option — taking cognizance under Section 190(1)(a) on the original complaint — was not only lawful but well-established in precedent. The court traced the legal position back to H.S. Bains v. State (UT of Chandigarh) (1980), where the Supreme Court had clearly laid out the three options available to a magistrate upon receiving a police closure report.

The court also cited a string of subsequent decisions — Gopal Vijay Verma v. Bhuneshwar Prasad Sinha (1982), Gangadhar Janardan Mhatre v. State of Maharashtra (2004), India Carat (P) Ltd. v. State of Karnataka (1989), Rakesh & Another v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2014), and B. Chandrika v. Santhosh (2014) — all of which affirmed the same principle: even where a magistrate accepts a police closure report and discharges the accused, the magistrate retains the power to take cognizance on a complaint or Protest Petition based on the same or similar allegations. Accepting a police report does not bar the magistrate from looking at the case afresh through a complaint.

The Supreme Court found that the CJM had exercised his judicial discretion properly. He had rejected the Final Report, treated the Protest Petition as a complaint, recorded statements under Sections 200 and 202, and issued summons only after recording his prima facie satisfaction. This was exactly what the law required. As the court held, "the impugned orders passed by the High Court being highly erroneous, the same are quashed and set aside." The bench made clear that the CJM's approach was "lawful and proper."

When the High Court should not interfere

The Supreme Court's reasoning went further. It held that where a magistrate has acted within the four corners of the law — exercising discretion in a manner consistent with settled principles — the High Court under Section 482 CrPC should not interfere with such discretionary orders. The High Court's power under Section 482 is meant to prevent abuse of process, not to substitute its own judgment for that of the magistrate on routine procedural choices.

The bench described the High Court's orders as "highly erroneous." It quashed both orders and directed the CJM to proceed with the complaint case in accordance with law. The accused were given two weeks to respond to the summons and appear before the CJM. "It shall be open for the respondents-accused to respond to the summons and appear before the concerned CJM within two weeks," the court ordered.

The appeals were allowed.

What this means for every magistrate and complainant

This judgment is a clear signal to magistrates across the country: you have three tools, not two. When a police closure report lands on your desk, you are not forced to either accept it or take cognizance on it. You can reject it entirely and treat the complainant's Protest Petition as a fresh complaint, proceeding under Section 190(1)(a) CrPC. That choice is lawful, and it is yours to make.

For complainants who feel the police have let them down, the message is equally clear: the magistrate's door remains open. A police closure report is not the end of the road. The Supreme Court's ratio — that "even where the final report under Section 173 is accepted and accused persons are discharged, the Magistrate retains power to take cognizance on a complaint or Protest Petition on the same or similar allegations" — gives every complainant a second chance at justice.

The procedural journey from the FIR register's thick ledger to the CJM's desk stacked with witness statements, and finally to the silent Supreme Court bench, underscores a fundamental truth: the law provides multiple paths to a fair hearing. The magistrate's discretion, exercised within the four corners of the law, deserves respect from higher courts.

THE PLAY: When a magistrate rejects a police closure report and takes cognizance on the original complaint under Section 190(1)(a) CrPC — after recording statements under Sections 200 and 202 — the High Court should not interfere under Section 482 CrPC unless the magistrate's order is perverse or outside the law.

The case that began with sharp weapons on a Kannauj evening in 2017 will now proceed to trial. The magistrate's order, restored by the Supreme Court, stands.