In Brief
A shareholders' association challenged the High Court's order staying criminal proceedings against three bank officials for fraud and document forgery. The petitioner had filed complaints after failing to obtain interim relief in related election dispute writ petitions. The Supreme Court upheld the High Court's stay, holding that the criminal complaints constituted an abuse of process—a deliberate attempt to circumvent election outcomes through misuse of criminal law. The Court found mala fide in the temporal progression: election grievances came first (November 2020), only transforming to fraud allegations after electoral remedies were exhausted (February 2021). The Court affirmed that exceptional interim relief is justified where criminal proceedings are manifestly attended with ulterior motive and where the supremacy of the ballot cannot be sabotaged by police authority.
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