In Brief
The State of Maharashtra challenged a High Court order de-freezing a respondent's bank accounts that had been attached in connection with a financial fraud investigation. The respondent had initially sought de-freezing relief in Criminal Application No. 178 of 2016 before the Division Bench, but withdrew it on 29 June 2016. He then filed an identical application (Criminal Application No. 459 of 2016) before a Single Judge on 1 July 2016, who granted the relief without knowledge of the earlier withdrawal. The Supreme Court held that this constituted a manifest abuse of process and set aside the Single Judge's order, finding that the respondent was duty-bound to disclose the earlier application and that re-approaching the court with substantially identical relief after withdrawal was impermissible.
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