The case against the two men rested on a fear rather than a fact. The police alleged that, having returned from a religious gathering at the Nizamuddin Markaz in the early days of the pandemic, they might be infected and might, in turn, infect others. But they were tested, and the tests came back negative. On that record, the Allahabad High Court held, the prosecution was built on presumption and assumption, and pursued with an ulterior and malafide motive; to let it continue would be to abuse the process of the court. The FIR and the proceedings against them were quashed.
Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court has quashed a 2020 FIR, charge-sheet and criminal proceedings against two men who had been accused of returning from the Tablighi Jamaat gathering at the Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi and thereby risking the spread of COVID-19, holding that they were falsely implicated on the basis of presumption and assumption and with a malafide motive, their COVID tests having turned out negative [Faizan and Another v. State of U.P. and Another].
Justice Dr. Gautam Chowdhary, allowing an application under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, held that the continuance of the proceedings would amount to an abuse of the process of the court.
The case
The FIR, lodged in April 2020 by a police inspector, alleged that information had been received that the two applicants had gone to the Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi to attend a religious gathering and, on returning, were staying at their homes with their families; there was, it was alleged, an apprehension that they might be infected with the coronavirus and that others might, in consequence, be infected too. The case was registered under Sections 188, 269 and 307 of the Indian Penal Code, read with Section 51(b) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and Section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897. The applicants were medically examined and sent to a quarantine centre, and, after investigation, a charge-sheet was filed and the Magistrate took cognizance and summoned them.
Counsel for the applicants submitted that the FIR rested on a false and frivolous apprehension of infection, that the charge-sheet had been filed in a perfunctory manner and cognizance taken cursorily, and, crucially, that the applicants’ COVID tests had come back negative. The Additional Government Advocate for the State, the Court recorded, could not dispute those facts.
Presumption and assumption
On the material, the Court found the foundation of the prosecution to have fallen away. The FIR had been lodged on the apprehension that the applicants might be infected and might infect others, whereas their tests had turned negative. It was therefore crystal clear, the Court held, that the applicants had been falsely implicated with false and frivolous allegations, due to an ulterior motive and malafide intent, and only on the basis of presumption and assumption. Allowing the proceedings to continue in such circumstances, it held, would result in an abuse of the process of the court and of the process of law, and no prosecution could lie against the applicants.
The Bhajan Lal framework
The Court tested the case against the settled guidelines of the Supreme Court in State of Haryana v. Ch. Bhajan Lal, which enumerate the categories of cases in which the High Court may exercise its inherent power under Section 482 CrPC, or under Article 226, to quash criminal proceedings, either to prevent the abuse of the process of a court or to secure the ends of justice. Those categories include cases where the allegations, even taken at face value, do not make out an offence, and, in particular, where a criminal proceeding is manifestly attended with malafides or is maliciously instituted with an ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance on the accused.
The Court also referred to the four-step test in Prashant Bharti v. State (NCT of Delhi) for determining the veracity of a prayer for quashing, whether the material relied upon by the accused is of sterling and impeccable quality, whether it rules out the assertions in the charges, whether it stands unrefuted by the prosecution, and whether proceeding with the trial would amount to an abuse of process. The present case, the Court held, was squarely covered by these authorities; the negative test reports were material of exactly the quality that displaced the very premise of the FIR, and the State had not been able to dispute it.
Accordingly, the Court allowed the application and quashed the entire proceedings of the case, arising out of the 2020 crime, insofar as they related to the applicants.
Why it matters
The order belongs to the body of cases in which courts have unwound the criminal prosecutions launched in the first weeks of the pandemic against persons associated with the Nizamuddin gathering. Many of those cases were built, as this one was, on an apprehension of infection rather than proof of it, and courts across the country have since quashed or set aside a number of them where the factual premise did not survive scrutiny. The distinctive feature here is the negative test report: once the apprehension that the applicants were infected was falsified by their own medical results, the case had nothing left to stand on, and its continuance served no purpose the criminal law recognises.
The decision is a workmanlike application of the quashing jurisdiction to a prosecution founded on conjecture. The Bhajan Lal categories exist precisely to arrest a criminal case that is either baseless on its own allegations or malicious in its institution, and a charge premised on what a person might do to public health, contradicted by the medical evidence, answers that description. The Court’s reliance on the negative results, coupled with the State’s inability to dispute the facts, shows the analysis turning on the quality of the exculpatory material, the standard Prashant Bharti sets for quashing at the threshold.
For the individuals, the significance is the end of a proceeding that had hung over them since 2020, on charges as grave as those under Section 307 IPC, for conduct that, on the record, amounted to no offence at all. More broadly, the order is a reminder that public-health emergencies do not suspend the ordinary requirements of the criminal law: an FIR must rest on facts capable of making out an offence, and where it rests instead on presumption and assumption, later shown to be false, the inherent power of the High Court exists to bring it to an end.
Case Title: Faizan and Another v. State of U.P. and Another [Application U/S 528 BNSS No. 9690 of 2025]
Bench: Justice Dr. Gautam Chowdhary, High Court of Judicature at Allahabad
Date of Order: September 18, 2026
Appearances: Advocates Mansoor Ahmad and Soni Gupta for the applicants; Additional Government Advocate Rajendra Singh for the State.
Status: Application allowed. FIR, charge-sheet and entire proceedings of the 2020 case quashed qua the applicants, as founded on presumption and assumption and attended with malafides; COVID tests having been negative.