Karnataka High Court Halts the Withdrawal of 52 Criminal Cases, Including the 2022 Aland Dargah Riots
A division bench found that the Congress government's move to drop prosecutions — among them seven cases tied to communal violence — relied on a reading of the law the court had already rejected, and stayed it pending a full hearing.
The Indian Account desk · 2026-07-08
On 2 July 2026, the High Court of Karnataka stayed the state government's decision to withdraw prosecution in 52 criminal cases, among them cases arising from the 2022 communal violence at the Ladle Mashak Dargah in Aland, Kalaburagi district. A division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice K.S. Hemalekha passed the interim order and posted the matter for a fuller hearing on 28 September. The immediate effect is narrow but consequential: prosecutions that the state had ordered dropped will proceed, at least until the court decides whether the government followed the law.
The order matters beyond Karnataka because it tests a boundary that recurs across Indian states — where an elected government's power to end criminal cases stops, and a prosecutor's independent duty begins.
The sequence began in the cabinet. The Siddaramaiah government decided to withdraw the cases, a list that included charges against farmers, Dalit groups, Cauvery and Kalasa-Banduri agitators, and pro-Kannada activists. Around ten of the cases were against the veteran activist Vatal Nagaraj. Seven were connected to the 2022 Aland violence. A government order then directed public prosecutors to seek the withdrawals.
That instruction is the legal fault line. Withdrawal of prosecution is governed by Section 321 of the old Criminal Procedure Code (now Section 360 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita). Under it, the public prosecutor — not the cabinet — must apply an independent mind before asking a court to drop a case, and the court must then grant consent. The petitioner, advocate Girish Bharadwaj, argued that the executive had inverted this by ordering prosecutors to withdraw. His counsel submitted that the discretion belongs to the prosecutor, to be exercised on legal considerations and public interest rather than on government direction.
The bench, at least at this stage, agreed. It found prima facie fault with the state's use of Section 321, noting that the approach contradicted an earlier High Court ruling — in a matter Bharadwaj himself had brought — which had held that prosecutors are not bound by government orders. The court issued notice to the state government and the Directorate of Prosecution, directing responses within two weeks.
The Aland violence traces to early 2022, when a group attempted to perform a "purification" ritual around a Shivling said to lie inside the Hazrat Ladle Mashak Dargah, alleging the structure had been desecrated. The dispute triggered clashes; police personnel were among those caught up in the unrest. Thirteen cases were registered over the episode, of which the cabinet moved to drop seven.
The trigger for reopening these files was political as much as legal. Assembly Speaker U.T. Khader had written to Home Minister G. Parameshwara seeking a review and possible withdrawal of charges against what he described as "innocent" Muslim youth allegedly falsely implicated. That the Aland cases were bundled into a much larger list — alongside farmers and Kannada activists — became the crux of the row that followed.
Government figures defended both the substance and the process. Parameshwara said the cabinet had not acted hastily and had discussed the matter thoroughly before deciding. Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar argued the decision was not specific to Aland but covered a range of politically motivated cases. After the stay, Home Minister Priyank Kharge said the government would study the order before its next step, noted that the list also included cases involving BJP leaders, and maintained that no order had been issued in violation of the law.
The opposition read it differently. The BJP called the withdrawals "appeasement politics," and Union Minister Pralhad Joshi accused the government of shielding riot accused for electoral gain by clubbing communal cases with those of farmers and activists. Party leaders described the stay as a rebuke to the government.
Two things can be held apart here. Whether the accused in the Aland cases should ultimately be prosecuted is a question for trial, on evidence. Whether the government followed the correct procedure to end those prosecutions is the narrower question the court has stayed to examine. The interim order settles neither; it restores the cases to the position they were in before the withdrawal, and asks the state to justify how it exercised a power the law places, in the first instance, with the prosecutor. The answer will come on 28 September.