The Supreme Court of India ruled that once a bail order is signed, it cannot be recalled or reversed due to a staff member’s typing mistake. Invoking Section 362 CrPC, the Court restored anticipatory bail, holding that changing “allowed” to “rejected” amounts to an illegal review, not a clerical correction.
New Delhi: Can a court cancel bail just because a staff member typed one wrong word? The answer is no, said the Supreme Court of India, making it clear that once a judicial order is signed, it cannot be taken back simply because of a typing mistake.
In an important ruling, the Supreme Court restored anticipatory bail granted to an accused in a narcotics case and strongly criticised the Patna High Court for recalling its own signed order.
The top court said that doing so violated Section 362 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), which strictly prohibits courts from altering or reviewing criminal orders after they are signed, except to correct minor clerical or arithmetical mistakes.
The judgment was delivered by a bench of Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice PB Varale, who held that the High Court had acted beyond its legal authority.
The case arose from a strange and unusual incident in August 2025. Rambali Sahni had approached the Patna High Court seeking anticipatory bail in a case registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act at Vaishali district in Bihar.
On August 27, 2025, the High Court passed and signed an order granting him anticipatory bail. The court recorded that no contraband was recovered from Sahni and that his name appeared only in the confessional statement of a co-accused.
However, just three days later, on August 30, 2025, the same High Court recalled its own order. The court claimed that it never intended to grant bail and that the word “allowed” was mistakenly typed in the operative part of the order instead of “rejected” by the personal assistant attached to the bench.
The High Court further recorded that the staff member had tendered an unconditional apology, explaining that he had made the mistake due to lack of concentration as he was grieving the sudden death of his maternal uncle on the same day.
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Accepting this explanation, the High Court modified its earlier order, rejected the bail plea, and even cancelled the bail bonds that had already been furnished.
This recall order was challenged before the Supreme Court.
Setting aside the High Court’s action, the Supreme Court made it clear that sympathy for a staff member or an unfortunate situation cannot override settled principles of criminal law. Referring to Section 362 CrPC, the bench observed:
“We deem it apposite to note Section 362 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 which clearly mandates that once the judgment or order is signed, no alternation or review of the same is permissible except to correct a clerical or arithmetical error,”
The Supreme Court explained that there is a clear legal difference between correcting a minor clerical mistake and changing the very outcome of a case. Altering an order from “bail granted” to “bail rejected” is not a clerical correction but a complete reversal of the decision, which the law does not allow.
The bench further held:
“There being no clerical or arithmetical error which had crept in, yet the High Court recalled the earlier order granting bail… the same would not be sustainable even for a moment,”
The apex court said that what the High Court attempted was effectively a review of its own signed judgment, which is expressly barred under criminal law.
Apart from the procedural illegality, the Supreme Court also examined the merits of the case. The prosecution alleged that 6.33 kilograms of ganja was recovered from a co-accused, who claimed during interrogation that the contraband was meant for Sahni.
However, the court noted that no recovery was made from Sahni himself and that his involvement was based solely on the statement of the co-accused.
The Supreme Court observed that Sahni’s role would ultimately be examined during trial and that the reasons recorded by the High Court while granting bail on August 27, 2025, were legally sound.
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Accordingly, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal, set aside the recall order passed by the Patna High Court, and restored the original order granting anticipatory bail. The Court directed that Rambali Sahni be released on bail on the terms fixed by the investigating officer.
This judgment reinforces the sanctity of signed judicial orders and sends a strong message that courts cannot undo their own decisions under the guise of correcting a mistake, especially when such a change affects the personal liberty of an accused.
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