Summary
The Supreme Court made distinct procedural orders in a group of criminal matters. Most, including Naveen Kaushik’s appeal, were withdrawn with trial-court contentions preserved. Criminal Appeal 1394/2013 was remanded to the High Court following Asian Resurfacing; appeal 1384/2013 was infructuous; specified other appeals and petitions were dismissed for lack of merit. Two petitions received separate detagging or tagging directions. The order did not decide guilt or grant a uniform disposition across the batch.
Issues
- What separate procedural disposition applied to each group of criminal matters.
- Which issues remained open for the trial court or High Court after disposal.
Held
- The principal group beginning with Criminal Appeal 1393/2013, together with the matters listed under that heading, was permitted to withdraw without prejudice to lawful trial-court contentions. Appearance was directed for 21 May 2018 or the scheduled date. (¶ Criminal Appeal 1393/2013 and listed connected matters)
- Criminal Appeal 1394/2013 was disposed of by setting aside the impugned order and remanding to the High Court for fresh decision in accordance with Asian Resurfacing dated 28 March 2018. Appearance before the High Court was fixed for 28 May 2018. (¶ Criminal Appeal 1394/2013)
- Criminal Appeal 1384/2013 was dismissed as infructuous on counsel’s statement, with trial-court appearance on 21 May 2018 or the scheduled date. (¶ Criminal Appeal 1384/2013)
- Criminal Appeal 1385/2013 was withdrawn with contentions preserved and appearance fixed for 15 May 2018; appeals 1406/2013 and 1391/2013 received equivalent withdrawal liberty with appearance on 10 July 2018. (¶¶ Criminal Appeal 1385/2013, Criminal Appeals 1406/2013 and 1391/2013)
- Criminal Appeal 234/2014 was withdrawn without prejudice to trial-court contentions, with appearance directed for 19 May 2018. (¶ Criminal Appeal 234/2014)
- Criminal Appeals 1386–1387/2013 and 1395/2013 and SLPs 10050–10051/2013 were dismissed for lack of merit, with trial-court appearance on 21 May 2018 or the scheduled date. Records in the above matters were to be sent to the trial court to enable further proceedings. (¶ Criminal Appeals 1386–1387/2013 and 1395/2013; SLPs 10050–10051/2013)
- SLP 5678/2014 was detagged for independent listing because it had been wrongly tagged. SLP 9363/2017 was directed to be tagged with SLP 6165/2016. These petitions did not receive the merits or withdrawal dispositions applied to other groups. (¶¶ SLP 5678/2014, SLP 9363/2017)
Result
Matters dealt with by separate withdrawal, remand, infructuous-dismissal, merits-dismissal and listing directions. Naveen Kaushik’s appeal withdrawn with trial-court contentions preserved; no adjudication of guilt.