The Allahabad High Court has rejected an application seeking recall of its March 2025 judgment that had upheld the petitioner’s conviction in a 1982 murder case. A Bench of Justice Vivek Kumar Birla and Justice Praveen Kumar Giri held that such a recall is not permissible under Section 362 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which expressly prohibits courts from altering or reviewing their final judgments, except to correct clerical or arithmetic mistakes.

Background

The appellant had been on the run for more than thirty years and was granted bail in the 1982 murder case. However, the bench upon perusal of the order sheet of the instant appeal observed that the “ several opportunities were given to the applicant/appellant. Even non-bailable warrant was issued against him but he did not come before the Court and gave wrong impression that whereabouts were not known to anybody.”

In the present appeal, the recall plea was that the appellant was ignorant of the judgment because his original counsel had died and that he was no longer based in his native village. He lived in Punjab with his brother/deponent. The bench could not find any valid documentation to sustain these assertions or expound his disappearance over a long period of time.

The attorney of the appellant was relying on the Supreme Court ruling on Dhananjay Rai v. Guddu Rai. State of Bihar (2022) (2022 LiveLaw (SC) 597) to say that the absconding alone cannot be appealed against. The High Court made a distinction between the current case, where the appeal was decided on merits, which is also a major difference with the precedent mentioned.

The court once again affirmed the rule in Vikram Bakshi v. R.P. Khosla and Ors 2025 SCC Online SC 1783, which states that signed judgments cannot be reviewed or reconsidered by a court at all, except in limited clerical or arithmetical amendments.

The court made it clear that the inherent powers contained in Section 482 CrPC (now Section 528 BNSS) cannot serve to defeat the bar contained in Section 362.

Based on these results, the application to recall, despite being made with delay condonation, was not sustainable according to the bar in Section 362 CrPC (now Section 403 of BNSS ).

“As against this, learned A.G.A for the respondent State has submitted that the impugned order has been passed on merits, after re-appreciation of the evidence rather than due to non prosecution. Therefore, the recall application is not maintainable in view of Section 362 of Cr.P.C.” the court emphasized.

Case Title: Laxman vs. State of UP., Criminal Appeal No. - 1876 of 1983

Advocates for Appellant: G.P. Dixit, Prakash Chandra Srivastava, Vishnu Prakash

Advocates for Respondents: A.G.A.