The Supreme Court has set aside the deadlines set by the Madras High Court to complete investigation and trial in multiple criminal cases involving YouTuber Savukku Shankar.
A Bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Satish Chandra Sharma on January 16 quashed the deadline of four months for the police to complete probe and file chargesheets, and six months for trial courts to conclude trial.
The top court held that these directions contained in paragraphs 8 and 9 of the High Court’s order dated July 29, 2025 were unwarranted and liable to be deleted.
The appeal arose from the dismissal of a petition filed by Shankar before the Madras High Court seeking directions to the authorities to take action on his complaints dated February 8, May 23 and June 21, 2025 and to restrain interference with the functioning of his channel Savukku Media.
While dismissing the petition, the High Court recorded that Shankar was an accused in 37 criminal cases, with charge-sheets having been filed in 24 cases and investigation pending in 13 cases.
On that basis, the High Court directed the police to complete investigation in the pending cases and file charge-sheets within four months.
Further, it directed the trial courts to complete the trial in the 24 cases within six months.
Shankar moved the Court against the same.
The Supreme Court observed that although the High Court could have dismissed the petition on the findings recorded, the further directions issued had the effect of placing Shankar in a "worse" position for having approached the writ court.
The Court held that it is not permissible for a writ court to direct the filing of charge-sheets, as the formation of opinion on whether an accused should be placed on trial lies with the investigating officer after completion of investigation. The Court also noted that fixing timelines for conclusion of trials without examining the stage of proceedings could affect the fairness of the process.
"... If the high court directs, at a stage prior to conclusion of investigation, that a charge-sheet has invariably to be filed upon closure of investigation in a particular case irrespective of what the materials are which have been collected during investigation and without allowing the investigating officer to form his own opinion as regards the next course of action, that would take away the discretion of such officer and he would be left with no other option but to proceed in the direction as required by the high court under pain of threat of contempt. Other than very extreme cases, the high courts ought to exercise restraint and not issue such directions which foreclose the discretion of the executive," the Supreme Court said.
It further noted that if the High Court proceeds to make a direction that chargesheets should be filed upon conclusion of investigation or that a trial should be concluded within a particular time-frame, without even attempting to ascertain the stage the trial has reached, the consequence of such an order could be far reaching.
"The concept of a fair trial could be rendered a casualty. Directions of the nature made by the learned Judge amounts to improper exercise of writ jurisdiction and such an approach cannot but be disapproved by us," the apex court observed.
The Court clarified that investigating officers shall proceed in accordance with law, form an independent opinion based on the material collected during investigation and file appropriate reports under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure or Section 193 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, as applicable. Trial courts were left free to proceed in accordance with law.
Shankar was represented by Advocates Balaji Srinivasan, K Gowtham Kumar, Kanishka Singh, Vishwaditya Sharma and AP Balaji.
The respondents were represented by Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra instructed by advocates Sabarish Subramanian and KS Badhrinathan.
[Read Order]