Alliance University Dispute: SC Issues Notice On Pleas Against Karnataka HC Ruling Quashing 12 FIRs, Says HC Judgment Not to Be Relied Upon

The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice on a batch of special leave petitions challenging the Karnataka High Court's judgment that quashed twelve FIRs arising out of the long-running battle over control of Alliance University. Counsel for the respondents accepted notice.

A Bench of Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice Prasanna B. Varale was hearing the matter and directed that the HC judgment shall not be relied upon in other proceedings between the parties. The respondents were given four weeks to file their counter affidavits.

"In the meanwhile, we make it clear that the impugned judgment shall not be relied upon in the other proceedings," the Court said. The matters will next be heard on November 5, 2026.

The direction restraining reliance on the judgment is significant because the parties are engaged in parallel litigation before the civil courts, the National Company Law Tribunal, the Registrar of Companies and other forums. The petitioner had contended that the High Court's findings, if left operative, would have a cascading effect on each of those proceedings.

What Is Under Challenge

The lead petition has been filed by Madhukar G. Angur, the university's former Chancellor, against Sudhir Angur and others. It challenges the common judgment of Justice Mohammad Nawaz dated July 17, 2026, which quashed FIRs registered at Anekal Police Station in 2015 and 2016 alleging forgery, cheating and misuse of a digital signature in filings made before the Registrar of Companies.

According to the complainants, the accused forged their signatures in March and April 2015, obtained a digital signature certificate in Dr. Angur's name, and used it to upload resignation letters, board resolutions and share transfer forms before the Registrar of Companies. These filings showed Dr. Angur and his wife as having resigned as directors and transferred their shareholding in the company. The accused maintain that the couple resigned and transferred their shares voluntarily on March 5, 2015, and later resiled from the arrangement. A series of FIRs followed at Anekal Police Station.

What The Karnataka High Court Held

On remand, the High Court once again quashed all twelve FIRs, along with the proceedings pending before the Anekal magistrate, 3 of which were pending before the magistrate and the remaining 9 were pending investigation.

The High Court has quashed 12 FIRs, of which 3 FIRs resulted in filing of Chargesheets. The central allegations pertain to theft of documents and forgery signatures of the Dr. Madhukar Angur and his wife Priyanka BS to change the directorship and shareholding of the M/s Alliance Business School, opening of bank accounts using said documents and claiming control over the Alliance University. There is also an FIR filed by a police constable alleging being beaten up with iron rod(s) by the accused persons.

The High Court did not see these as isolated crimes. It held that the parties' disputes are, in their essential character, "civil and company-law disputes" over shareholding, directorship and the management and control of Alliance Business School and Alliance University. The allegations of forgery, it said, "do not survive independently" of that corporate contest.

The judgment is blunt about what it saw behind the prosecutions. "The criminal law has been invoked to secure an advantage in the corporate dispute and to pressurize the petitioners, rather than to vindicate any genuine and independent criminal grievance," the High Court observed, adding that "the criminal process cannot be permitted to become a weapon of harassment and coercion."

The High Court leaned on the conduct of the complainant's side in the parallel civil litigation. It recorded that Madhukar Angur withdrew his civil suit unconditionally, was restrained by successive injunctions that were affirmed up to the Supreme Court, and had his termination as Chancellor upheld. It also noted that a One-Man Commission found he had caused financial loss to the University, while the respondents enjoyed the benefit of interim civil orders throughout.

On the forgery allegation itself, the High Court found the foundation weak. It noted that Krishnamohan Ramineni, described in the judgment as the only independent person among the three complainants, had affirmed the genuineness of the signatures in a civil suit. The handwriting opinion relied upon by the prosecution came from "a private examiner obtained in preference to the Government Forensic Science Laboratory and rendered upon photocopies," the Court noted, holding that such material could not form a credible foundation for the offence of forgery.

The Registrar of Companies, too, offered little help to the complainants. The High Court observed that while certain filings were marked defective, the Registrar "did not adjudicate upon the allegations of fraud or forgery" and left those questions to the competent forum. The respondents have maintained that the transactions in question were voluntary.

Second Round Before the Supreme Court

Madhukar Angur argues that the High Court travelled beyond the limited remand ordered by the Supreme Court. This is the second time the cases have reached the Supreme Court. On January 30, 2025, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court's earlier quashing order and sent the matter back, and on August 6, 2025, it restored the campus-incident FIRs. The High Court read the remand as leaving "all other issues" open, and held that it was free to examine independently whether continuing the prosecutions would amount to an abuse of the process of law.

According to the petition, a High Court exercising its powers under Section 482 CrPC could not have weighed or discounted this material.

The petition argues that the High Court misapplied the doctrine of sameness, since the bar on successive FIRs applies to the same incident or transaction and not to complaints that are merely "substantially similar." Three complainants alleging forgery of their own signatures on different documents, it is argued, disclose three distinct offences.

A Separate Murder Trial

The dispute has a darker backdrop. Sudhir Angur, one of the respondents, is separately facing trial as the prime accused in the October 2019 murder of Alliance University's former Vice Chancellor Ayyappa Dore. The prosecution alleges the killing was carried out on his instructions amid the fight over ownership of the university. The trial is pending. However, the case is distinct from the forgery FIRs before the Supreme Court.

Advocate-on-Record Ashima Mandla, with Advocates Mandakini Singh and Vanshika Tewari, appeared for the petitioner. Senior Advocates S. Nagamuthu, Shyamsundar M.S., Anand Sanjay M. Nuli and Manoj Prasad appeared for the respondents, along with Advocates Suraj Kaushik, Satya Narayan, Shyam Gupta, Nanda Kumar K.B. and Rovin Singh Solanki, instructed by M/s Nuli & Nuli, Advocate-on-Record.

Case Title: Madhukar G. Angur v. Sudhir Angur & Ors.

Date of Order: September 24, 2026

Bench: Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice Prasanna B. Varale