The Supreme Court recently ruled that criminal courts cannot review or recall their judgments except to correct clerical or arithmetical errors, while setting aside a Delhi High Court order that had reopened perjury proceedings in a corporate dispute. A bench of Chief Justice BR Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih set aside the HC order that had recalled its earlier decision dismissing a petition for initiating perjury proceedings in a long-running dispute.
“the criminal courts, as envisaged under the CrPC, are barred from altering or review their own judgments except for the exceptions which are explicitly provided by the statute, namely, correction of a clerical or an arithmetical error that might have been committed or the said power is provided under any other law for the time being in force. As the courts become functus officio the very moment a judgment or an order is signed, the bar of Section 362 CrPC becomes applicable, this, despite the powers provided under Section 482 CrPC which, this veil cannot allow the courts to step beyond or circumvent an explicit bar”, the Court observed.