Supreme Court: ‘Wrong Statement’ Is Not the Same as ‘False Statement’; Quashes Perjury Proceedings Against Litigant and Lawyer
In a significant ruling on the law governing perjury and false evidence, the Supreme Court has held that a “wrong statement” cannot automatically be equated with a “false statement” for the purpose of initiating criminal prosecution under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Setting aside orders of the Bombay High Court and a lower appellate court, the Bench quashed criminal proceedings initiated against a litigant and his counsel, observing that an erroneous or inadvertent statement, including a typographical mistake, does not by itself amount to a criminal offence of giving false evidence.
The judgment was delivered by a Bench comprising Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar in Prabhakar Yeshwant Masram v. Sou Tula Namdeorao Jaipurkar. The dispute arose from a long-pending civil property litigation in which the respondents alleged that the appellants had made false statements in a memorandum of appeal and an accompanying stay application. Acting on an application under Section 340 CrPC, the appellate court directed prosecution of both the litigant and his advocate for offences under Sections 193, 199 and 200 of the Indian Penal Code, a decision later affirmed by the Bombay High Court.
Reversing those orders, the Supreme Court drew a clear distinction between an incorrect statement and a deliberately false one. The Court observed that while a statement may be factually wrong because of mistake, misunderstanding, or typographical error, a false statement necessarily carries an element of conscious intention to deceive the court. Criminal prosecution for perjury cannot be founded merely on inaccuracies unless there is material indicating deliberate falsehood designed to obtain an undue advantage in judicial proceedings.
The Bench reiterated that Section 340 CrPC confers an exceptional power and that courts must exercise it cautiously. Before directing prosecution, a court is required to record two independent findings: first, that there is a prima facie case indicating commission of an offence relating to false evidence; and second, that initiating prosecution is “expedient in the interests of justice.” The Supreme Court found that the lower appellate court had recorded only that “wrong statements” had been made and had failed to return the mandatory finding that prosecution was necessary in the interests of justice.
The Court also noted that the alleged mistakes had already been sought to be corrected through an application filed by the appellants before the Section 340 proceedings were initiated. This conduct, according to the Bench, was inconsistent with any intention to mislead the court and strongly suggested that the errors were inadvertent rather than deliberate. Consequently, the statutory requirements for prosecuting the litigant and his advocate were not satisfied.
Criticising the High Court’s approach, the Supreme Court observed that the appellate court had effectively supplied findings that were absent from the original order. While the lower court had referred only to “wrong statements,” the High Court proceeded as though it had found “false statements” and further held that prosecution was expedient in the interests of justice. The Supreme Court held that an appellate court cannot cure such fundamental defects by introducing findings that were never recorded by the court exercising jurisdiction under Section 340 CrPC.
Relying on the Constitution Bench decision in Iqbal Singh Marwah v. Meenakshi Marwah, the Court further observed that proceedings under Section 340 CrPC should ordinarily not be invoked lightly or used as a tactical weapon in pending civil disputes. Perjury prosecutions are intended to preserve the purity of judicial proceedings and should be reserved for cases involving clear, deliberate attempts to mislead the administration of justice, rather than genuine mistakes or drafting errors.
Allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court quashed the orders directing prosecution against both the litigant and his advocate and dismissed the application under Section 340 CrPC. The ruling reinforces the principle that criminal liability for false statements in judicial proceedings arises only where there is prima facie evidence of intentional deception coupled with a judicial finding that prosecution is necessary in the interests of justice. The judgment is expected to serve as an important precedent in preventing routine perjury applications from being used as a litigation strategy while preserving the power of courts to act against genuine cases of deliberate falsehood.
