The Karnataka High Court Refuses To Quash Case Against Police Sub-Inspector accused of fabricating vaccination records to alter his date of birth, holding that a civil court decree correcting the date does not bar an investigation into the alleged forgery on which it rests.
Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has refused to quash a criminal case against a Police Sub-Inspector accused of fabricating entries in a vaccination register to change his date of birth by a year, holding that a civil decree correcting the date of birth cannot by itself bar an investigation into the alleged fabrication, and has directed the police to complete the investigation at the earliest [Kashilingegowda S B v. State of Karnataka and Others].
Justice Suraj Govindaraj dismissed Criminal Petition No. 904 of 2025, filed under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita), by order dated October 13, 2026. The allegations are those of the complainant, they are untested, the Court has expressed no view on the merits, and the petitioner is presumed innocent.
How the case reached the High Court
The Vidhana Soudha Police registered Crime No. 118/2024 on December 24, 2024 under Sections 198, 420, 465, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code, which deal with use of a false certificate, cheating, forgery, forgery for the purpose of cheating and use of a forged document as genuine. The complaint alleges that the petitioner, Kashilingegowda S B, fabricated vaccination register entries to change his date of birth from April 15, 1988 to April 15, 1987, so as to become eligible for the Police Sub-Inspector selection process. The case is pending before the XLI Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bengaluru.
The petitioner says his date of birth was corrected under a decree in O.S. No. 255 of 2017, which remains in force. He also relied on an order of the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal dated July 23, 2025 in Application No. 2324 of 2025, which allowed his challenge to disciplinary proceedings and held that a civil court decree could not be disregarded as void unless a competent forum set it aside.
The contentions
Advocate K.N. Narayanaswamy for the petitioner argued that the criminal proceedings over the same date of birth could not continue while the decree remained in force. Advocate Phaniraj Kashyap for the third respondent relied on K.G. Premshanker v. Inspector of Police (2002) 8 SCC 87 to submit that civil and criminal proceedings can run in parallel, and that the decree was itself founded on the vaccination document alleged to be forged. High Court Government Pleader Rashmi Patel appeared for the State.
What the Court held
The Court noted that the alleged fabrication was said to have taken place before the civil suit was filed and the decree passed, so the decree could not operate as a shield against an inquiry into how it came to be obtained. It held:
“the decree, by itself, cannot operate as an absolute bar to an investigation into the alleged fabrication”
The Court added that whether the documents were fabricated, and whether the petitioner was involved in any such fabrication, cannot be conclusively decided by relying on the subsisting civil decree and are matters for the investigation. It held that the allegations could not be dismissed at this stage as disclosing no offence, and that the decree was not a ground to quash or stop the investigation.
The directions
The criminal petition was dismissed. The respondents were directed to carry out the necessary investigation at the earliest and to file the investigation report at the earliest. The Court clarified that nothing in the order is a finding on the truth of the allegations or on the guilt of the petitioner.
Why the order matters
The order separates two questions that are often run together: whether a civil decree stands, and whether the documents it was built on can be investigated as forgeries. A subsisting decree does not close the door on a police inquiry into the underlying papers.
The Court has not said that the records were forged. The investigation will examine that, and the validity of the decree remains a separate matter.
Case Title: Kashilingegowda S B v. State of Karnataka and Others [Criminal Petition No. 904 of 2025]
Bench: Justice Suraj Govindaraj, Karnataka High Court
Date of Order: October 13, 2026
Appearances: Advocate K.N. Narayanaswamy for the petitioner; High Court Government Pleader Rashmi Patel for the State; Advocate Phaniraj Kashyap for respondent No. 3