KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK LTD. (KMBL) v. THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND ORS
Maintainability of Writ Petitions Against Section 156(3) Orders and the Requirement to Exhaust Revisional Remedies Before the Sessions Court.
Court: Bombay High Court
Citation: 2026:BHC-AS:14642
Decision Date: 25-03-2026
List of Laws
Constitution of India, Article 226 and 227; Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, Section 156(3), 397, 401, and 482; Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, Section 175(3), 438, 528; Limitation Act, 1963, Section 131; Doctrine of Alternate Remedy
- Facts: The Petitioner, Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd., filed an application under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C.) before the Judicial Magistrate First Class at Bandra, Mumbai. This application followed a prior history where the police, after a preliminary inquiry, had closed the Petitioner's complaint by deeming the matter to be of a civil nature—a finding that was not interfered with by the High Court in a previous writ petition or by the Supreme Court in a subsequent Special Leave Petition. The Magistrate rejected the Section 156(3) application, leading the Petitioner to approach the High Court again via a Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution read with Section 482 of the Cr.P.C.
- Procedural Posture: The case reached the Bombay High Court as a Criminal Writ Petition challenging the Magistrate's order of rejection. The State raised a preliminary objection regarding the maintainability of the petition, arguing that the Petitioner had an efficacious alternate remedy by way of a criminal revision application before the Sessions Court.
- Issue: Whether a writ petition under Article 226 or an inherent power petition under Section 482 of the Cr.P.C. is entertainable against an order rejecting an application under Section 156(3), especially when an alternate remedy of criminal revision is available?
- Holding: No, the petition is not entertainable in the presence of an efficacious alternate remedy. The Court held that an order passed under Section 156(3) of the Cr.P.C. is a "final order" and not an interlocutory one, making it amenable to revisional jurisdiction under Section 397 of the Cr.P.C. (or Section 438 of the BNSS).
- Reasoning: The Court reasoned that while "maintainability" and "entertainability" are distinct, the High Court should exercise self-restraint when a statute provides an effective alternate remedy. Relying on "Bipasha Deepak Kumar v. State of Maharashtra", the Court noted that an order terminating a Section 156(3) proceeding decides the rights of the parties regarding that specific stage and is thus revisable. Furthermore, where concurrent jurisdiction exists between the Sessions Court and High Court, the aggrieved party should ordinarily approach the inferior court first. Since no exceptional circumstances were demonstrated to bypass the Sessions Court, the Petitioner was relegated to the revisional forum, with the Court granting an exclusion of time for limitation purposes.
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