A judicial magistrate possesses no legal authority to take cognisance of the same criminal case more than once, nor can the court modify earlier cognisance orders through a subsequent protest petition, the Allahabad High Court has ruled.
The court further established that trial magistrates lack the jurisdiction to add or remove statutory penal sections while taking cognisance of a police chargesheet, clarifying that any alteration of alleged offences must strictly occur later during the formal framing of charges.
Justice Shree Prakash Singh of the High Court’s Lucknow bench delivered the ruling while setting aside a May 22 directive issued by the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district.
Procedural Limits On Cognisance
The High Court observed that once judicial cognisance is taken against an accused individual, repeating the process or tacking on additional legal provisions at the cognisance stage is legally impermissible.
According to the bench, magistrates cannot utilize a protest petition as a mechanism to review or revise an operative cognisance order. If circumstances warrant the inclusion of additional statutory offences against an accused, the appropriate procedural juncture to address them remains the stage of framing charges.
Origins Of The Gonda Dispute
The underlying proceedings stem from a criminal case initiated in 2025 at the Nawabganj police station, which originally named Akhilesh Singh, Shekhar Singh, and Alpana Singh as accused parties.
Following an investigation, the police submitted a formal chargesheet implicating Akhilesh Singh and Shekhar Singh, while simultaneously tendering a final exonerating report regarding Alpana Singh.
On November 17, 2025, the Gonda magistrate took cognisance of the chargesheet and issued process against the two chargesheeted men. The court summoned Akhilesh Singh under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 115(2) for voluntarily causing hurt, 351(2) for criminal intimidation, 352 for intentional insult intended to provoke a breach of peace, 324(2) for mischief, and 109(1) for attempt to murder. Under the same order, Shekhar Singh was summoned under sections 115(2), 351(2), and 352.
Trial Court Exceeded Authority
The controversy arose after a protest petition was filed challenging the police final report that favored Alpana Singh. In a subsequent order on May 22, the magistrate not only summoned Alpana Singh to stand trial but also introduced additional penal sections against Shekhar Singh.
Alpana Singh approached the High Court to contest the legality of the May 22 order.
Examining the record, the High Court emphasized that cognisance had already been validly taken against Shekhar Singh on November 17, 2025. Consequently, the magistrate could not reassess cognisance or expand the sections against him via the protest petition.
Quashing the Gonda magistrate’s May 22 order, the High Court remitted the matter to the trial court with instructions to proceed strictly in accordance with law.
