SC finds its order fabricated, asks Delhi Police to probe
A bench of justices AS Oka and Pankaj Mithal on Tuesday directed the police to submit a report to the court by December 1
The Supreme Court has directed the Delhi Police to investigate a case after it found that a court order presented to it by a litigant appeared to be “fabricated”.
The case in question referred to a land dispute petition that the top court dismissed in July last year. However, in December, litigant Lokesh Madanmohan Agarwal, who lost the appeal, wrote to the Supreme Court registry, producing two nearly identical copies of the July 2022 order — except that one of the “orders” said that the appeal had been admitted.
After a preliminary probe, the court found the order produced by the litigant was “fabricated”.
A bench of justices AS Oka and Pankaj Mithal on Tuesday directed the police to get to the root of the fraud by probing the role of the litigant’s lawyer, Prity Mishra, and submit a report to the court by December 1.
Before passing the order, the court had issued notices to Agarwal and Mishra, but both failed to appear before the court on September 26 when the order was passed.
The bench said, “The Registrar (Judicial Listing) must set the criminal law in motion by lodging a complaint with the jurisdictional police station. Though notice was issued to Prity Mishra, advocate, for examining her role, she has chosen not to appear before this Court today. It is for the investigating agency to examine the role allegedly played by her.”
The matter pertained to a land dispute over a property in Mumbai where the Bombay high court refused to interfere with a trial court decision to settle a partition suit based on a compromise entered between two parties — one of which included Lokesh and Manish Madanmohan Agarwal while the second had Satyanarayan Dhulichand Agarwal and others.
Lokesh Agarwal claimed that the compromise was achieved behind their back and sought revival of the suit.
The high court refused to entertain their petition on November 24, 2020. Against this order, the party, led by Manish Agarwal, had approached the top court last year. Their appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court at the very first hearing held on July 25 last year.
