Acquittal in main case wipes out ‘failure to appear’ FIR, rules Punjab and Haryana High Court

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that a separate FIR registered for failing to appear in court during that trial cannot be allowed to continue once a person is acquitted in the main criminal case.

Justice Sumeet Goel made it clear that the follow-up proceedings for non-appearance lose their meaning and become an abuse of law once the principal trial ends in acquittal.

Justice Goel explained that Section 229-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which deals with absence after a proclamation, was indeed a stand-alone offence. Yet, dragging on with the non-appearance case would be unfair, disproportionate and a needless burden on the already clogged courts when the accused was ultimately exonerated in the very case from which the proclamation arose.

Quashing an FIR under Section 229-A against an accused in a drugs case, Justice Goel asserted: “Once the main trial has been decided on merits and culminated in acquittal, the ancillary proceedings which have no independent existence, cannot be permitted to continue, as the same would amount to abuse of the process of law.”

Justice Goel drew strength from the Supreme Court’s recent judgment in Daljit Singh versus State of Haryana and own high court’s earlier decision in Sanjeet versus State of Haryana. Both rulings asserted that failure-to-appear was technically an offence by itself, but courts must also look at the larger picture and not apply the law in a rigid, mechanical way.

The Bench added that High Courts, exercising inherent powers under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023 (earlier Section 482 CrPC), were duty-bound to prevent abuse of the judicial process and to secure justice. “The law is not merely a set of programmed, nailed-to-the-ground rules,” Justice Goel asserted, adding that its true purpose was to deliver substantive justice.

Going into the background of the case, the Bench observed that the main NDPS trial against the petitioner had ended in his acquittal in April 2024, which was never challenged. Holding that continuation of the subsequent FIR for absence would serve no purpose, Justice Goel quashed the proceedings.