Last week offered a striking reminder that a judgment is rarely the end of a legal battle. In four significant cases, courts revisited earlier findings, overturned acquittals or reopened questions that had appeared to have been settled. Taken together, they raise a larger and more uncomfortable question about the nature of judicial certainty in India: when does correcting an error strengthen the administration of justice, and when does repeated reversal begin to undermine confidence in the judicial process?
The most headline-grabbing case involved journalist and founder of Tehelka magazine, Tarun Tejpal. A two-judge bench of the Bombay High Court, sitting in Goa, overturned his acquittal and convicted the 63-year-old in the 2013 sexual assault case involving a junior colleague inside a hotel elevator during an event organised by the magazine in Goa. The judgment came on an appeal by the Goa government against his acquittal by an additional sessions judge. The fact that the Goa government was represented by Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta added another contentious dimension to a case that has remained in the public eye for 13 years. The matter is now likely to travel to the Supreme Court.
The same week, the Supreme Court allowed Trinamool Congress general secretary and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee to travel abroad for medical treatment, setting aside the Calcutta High Court’s refusal to permit him to leave the country. The order was passed by a bench, comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana.
The Delhi High Court, meanwhile, delivered a strong message to judicial officers against allowing a woman’s clothing, character, lifestyle, religion or personal choices to become the basis of judicial reasoning in a criminal case. The reference in that case was to a pair of jeans worn by a woman who alleged that she had been stalked and touched inappropriately by Sajid. A trial court had acquitted him in 2014, citing discrepancies in the prosecution case. The Delhi government appealed against the acquittal, prompting the High Court not merely to reconsider the outcome, but also to address the manner in which courts should approach questions concerning women and sexual violence. It directed that the judgment be circulated to the Delhi Judicial Academy for judicial training and sensitisation.
Also during the week, a Supreme Court bench headed by the CJI admitted a petition challenging the acquittal of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, who is accused of sexually assaulting two women disciples. A trial court had convicted him and sentenced him to life imprisonment in 2019.
These cases bring into sharp focus the legal principle governing appeals against acquittal. An appellate court does not approach such an appeal as though it were deciding the matter for the first time. An acquitted accused enjoys what has often been described as a “double presumption” of innocence: the ordinary presumption that attaches to every accused, reinforced by the trial court’s finding of acquittal.
Consequently, an appellate court’s power to reverse an acquittal is exercised with considerable caution. Ordinarily, intervention is justified only where the lower court’s view is demonstrably unreasonable, perverse, contrary to the evidence or founded upon a serious misreading of the record.
The principle is not that a trial court is infallible. It is that the liberty of an acquitted person and the finality of judicial findings demand restraint before that conclusion is displaced.
Yet, reversals are not confined to the relationship between trial courts and higher courts. The Supreme Court itself reversed many of its own rulings in 2025, the year that marked 75 years of its establishment. The Court drew attention to this “growing trend” in Sk Md Anisur Rahaman. A bench, comprising Justices Dipankar Datta and AG Masih, “painfully observed” that judgments pronounced by judges—whether still in office or not, and regardless of how much time had elapsed—were increasingly being overturned by succeeding or specially constituted benches at the instance of parties aggrieved by earlier verdicts.
The examples are striking:
In July 2025, the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of a newspaper report headlined: “City Hounded by Strays, Kids Pay The Price”. A month later, on August 11, a bench, comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and R Mahadevan issued sweeping, time-bound directions concerning stray dogs, including restrictions on their presence in public places, sterilisation and immunisation, shelters and enforcement mechanisms. The order generated considerable opposition, including criticism that it conflicted with earlier judicial directions and crossed the boundary between adjudication and administration. The matter was subsequently placed before another three-judge bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath, which stayed the earlier directions, describing them as “harsh” and stressing the need for a balancing exercise.
The Aravalli Hills provided another example. In December 2025, the Supreme Court constituted a special bench following concern that its own November judgment, which had accepted a committee’s elevation-linked definition of the Aravallis for the purposes of mining regulation, had created serious consequences. The court took suo motu note of the controversy and ultimately stayed the earlier order while acknowledging the need for further clarification.
The Supreme Court also revisited its position on firecrackers. In October 2025, it modified an almost seven-year-old absolute prohibition and permitted the use of specified green crackers in Delhi-NCR, even as the capital continued to confront severe air-pollution problems.
Another major reversal concerned the constitutional powers of governors and the president in relation to Bills passed by state legislatures. In April 2025, the Supreme Court held that Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi’s indefinite delay in acting on Bills was “illegal” and “erroneous”. A month later, however, a five-judge Constitution bench revisited the issue and held that the April judgment itself was erroneous.
It concluded that governors and the president could not be bound by judicially prescribed timelines for dealing with Bills and that courts could not “deem assent” to legislation.
Perhaps the most unusual reversal involved the judiciary itself. On August 4, the Supreme Court sharply criticised an Allahabad High Court judge over a particular ruling, describing it as among the “worst and most erroneous” judgments it had encountered. It ordered the withdrawal of criminal matters listed before the judge and restrained him from hearing criminal cases until retirement.
The Supreme Court subsequently modified its own order, saying the revision was necessary to preserve the dignity and authority of the judiciary in the eyes of the public.
The point is not that judicial reversals are inherently undesirable. They are an essential part of the appellate system. A hierarchy of courts exists precisely because judges can err and because the law must provide mechanisms to correct those errors.
But the frequency and breadth of reversals inevitably raise questions about certainty, consistency and institutional confidence.
The problem is particularly acute at the level of the trial judiciary. Lower courts operate under enormous caseloads and severe resource constraints. Their difficulties are often compounded by inadequate investigation, incomplete evidence and shortcomings in prosecution. A trial judge may have to determine a case largely on the record placed before the court, sometimes after years of proceedings, while appellate courts have the advantage of multiple judges and extensive arguments from experienced counsel.
The distinction matters because, for most Indians, the district judiciary is not an abstract institution. It is the judiciary they actually encounter.
Citizens for Justice and Peace, in one of its reports, has pointed out that India’s judiciary is structured in a strictly hierarchical manner. While the higher judiciary represents the face of India’s judicial system internationally, it is the district and subordinate judiciary that represents the justice system to the ordinary citizen. These judges form the backbone of the system and carry the burden of the overwhelming bulk of litigation.
That reality should not translate into an assumption that lower-court judgments are inherently inferior or should routinely be overturned. Nor should the appellate process become a mechanism through which every disappointed litigant gets a second chance simply because another bench may take a different view.
The irony is that many judges who eventually occupy the higher judiciary began their careers in the lower courts or at the Bar. The present chief justice of India, for instance, began his professional career as an advocate in Haryana before becoming Advocate General.
The appellate hierarchy, therefore, should not be seen as a hierarchy of judicial intelligence. It is a hierarchy of review.
Judges must be able to correct one another. But the system also requires a measure of finality. If every judgment remains perpetually vulnerable to being reopened, justice can become less a destination than an endless journey through successive benches.
The challenge, ultimately, is to preserve both values: the courage to correct an error and the discipline to respect finality.
As the Citizens for Justice and Peace report puts it, “Justice has no favourite, except truth.” The real test for India’s judicial system is not whether judgments are ever reversed. It is whether reversals remain principled exceptions within a system that otherwise commands confidence in the certainty, consistency and integrity of its decisions.
—The writer is former Senior Managing Editor, India Legal magazine
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