The Supreme Court has questioned the Punjab & Haryana High Court for a suspicious delay in uploading an anticipatory bail order, suggesting it was backdated. The apex court has ordered seizure of records and a discreet probe while granting interim relief to the petitioner.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has recently taken a serious view of a delay in uploading an anticipatory bail order passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The apex court ordered an inquiry after noticing that although the High Court order was dated July 31, it was uploaded on the court’s website only several weeks later.
The matter came before a bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi, which was hearing an appeal filed on August 16. The Supreme Court did not reveal the name of the High Court judge concerned in this case.
During the hearing, the petitioner told the Supreme Court that the order of the High Court rejecting his anticipatory bail plea had still not been uploaded online.
Taking this statement seriously, the Supreme Court on August 20 directed the Registrar General of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to submit a report.
Following the direction, the Registrar General submitted a report disclosing that the order had remained unavailable on the High Court website until the Supreme Court intervened. Interestingly, the Registrar General had only asked the High Court judge’s secretary for an explanation on August 22.
The report was then filed three days later, by which time the order had already been uploaded. The delay was attributed to the judge undergoing a medical procedure.
However, the Supreme Court bench was not satisfied with this explanation. The judges pointed out that the report did not explain when exactly the order had been typed and finalised.
The court remarked that the circumstances strongly indicated that the order was not actually passed on July 31, despite what was shown on the High Court website.
Quoting the bench, the court observed: “It appears that order impugned was not passed on 31st July, 2025, in fact, it was passed after the order by this Court.”
In order to verify the actual sequence of events, the Supreme Court gave strict directions. It ordered that the stenographer’s book of the judge’s secretary be seized and checked to find out the exact date when the order was typed and corrected on the computer.
It also directed the collection of technical records from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to establish when the order was typed and uploaded.
The bench ordered:
“The steno book of the Secretary be seized and it be find out on which date the order was typed and corrected on P.C. The discreet inquiry be held and the report of P.C., from NIC be collected regarding typing and uploading and the same be filed on affidavit.”
While issuing notice to the State of Haryana, the Supreme Court also gave temporary relief to the petitioner. The bench directed that no coercive steps be taken against him until further orders.
The case will now come up for hearing again after four weeks.
In this matter, the petitioner was represented by Senior Advocate Siddharth Agarwal, assisted by advocates Ankit Sibbal, Rohitt Kumar Yadav, and Ashish Batra.
On the other hand, the complainant was represented by a team of advocates including Nipun Katyal, Suchakshu Jain, Madhakant Bhatia, Dhananjay Kumar, Surya Pratap Singh Rana, Manan Sharma, Rahul Sachdeva, and Shashank Shekhar.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court was represented by advocates Kabir Hathi and Rahul Gupta.
Case Title:
Ajay Maini vs. State of Haryana & Ors.
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