JUDGMENT :

Rakesh Kainthla, J.

The petitioner had earlier filed a Criminal Writ Petition No. 25 of 2026 titled Aryan versus State of H.P. before this Court to quash the FIR and the consequential proceedings arising out of it, which was listed before the Hon'ble Division Bench of this Court. Learned counsel for the petitioner, under instructions, sought permission to withdraw the petition with liberty to raise the contentions which had been raised in the petition at the stage of framing of the charges. The permission was granted, and the writ petition was dismissed as withdrawn. Instead of raising the contentions at the time of the framing of the charges as undertaken, the petitioner filed another petition before this Court, which was registered as Cr.MMO No. 402 of 2026, and was withdrawn on 13.05.2026.

2. Again, instead of taking the pleas before the learned Trial Court, the petitioner has approached this Court to quash the FIR and the consequential proceedings arising out of the FIR. The maintainability of the present petition was seriously doubtful; therefore, learned counsel for the petitioner was heard on the question of maintainability.

3. Mr Abhimanyu Rathore, learned counsel for the petitioner, submitted that a second petition lies to quash the FIR after the dismissal of the first petition, if there is a change in the circumstances. In the present case, a complaint was filed before the Police Station, Sadar, for the registration of the FIR against Meena Rani and Manoj for offences of extortion, blackmailing and criminal intimidation, which constitutes a change in the circumstance. Therefore, he submitted that the present petition is fully maintainable. He relied upon the judgments of Hon'ble Supreme Court in Bhisham Lal Verma v. State of U.P., 2023 SCC OnLine SC 1399, M.C. Ravikumar v. D.S. Velmurugan, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1498 and Muskan Enterprises v. State of Punjab, 2024 SCC OnLine SC 4107 in support of his submission.

4. Mr Tarun Pathak, learned Deputy Advocate General for the respondent/State, submitted that there is no change in the circumstances, and mere filing of the complaint cannot constitute any change. Therefore, he prayed that the present petition be dismissed.

5. I have given a considerable thought to the submissions made at the time and have gone through the records carefully.

6. It was laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Bhisham Lal Verma v. State of U.P., 2023 SCC OnLine SC 1399, that a person approaching the High Court under section 482 of Cr.P.C. should take all the pleas, and it is impermissible to file the petitions in piecemeal. It was observed:

10. In S. Madan Kumar v. K. Arjunan 2006 SCC OnLine Mad 94, the Madras High Court observed that a person who invokes Section 482 Cr. P.C. should honestly come before the Court raising all the pleas available to him at that point of time, and he is not supposed to approach the Court with instalment pleas. It was further observed that there may be a change of circumstances during the course of criminal proceedings which would give scope for the person aggrieved to invoke the inherent jurisdiction of the Court, but when he is posted with all the facts and circumstances of a case, he cannot withhold part of it for the purpose of filing yet another petition seeking the same relief.

11. We are in complete agreement with these observations of the Madras High Court. Though it is clear that there can be no blanket rule that a second petition under Section 482 Cr. P.C. would not lie in any situation, and it would depend upon the facts and circumstances of the individual case, it is not open to a person aggrieved to raise one plea after the other, by invoking the jurisdiction of the High Court under Section 482 Cr. P.C., though all such pleas were very much available even at the first instance. Permitting the filing of successive petitions under Section 482 Cr. P.C., ignoring this principle would enable an ingenious accused to effectively stall the proceedings against h