The Supreme Court has ruled that once a High Court accepts a compromise to quash certain offences in an FIR, it cannot sustain other offences arising from the exact same “inseparable” factual matrix. The Court held that if the settlement is genuine enough to quash personal offences, it “equally dilutes the foundation” of more serious charges like dacoity that rest on the same allegations.

In a judgment delivered on November 17, 2025, a bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta set aside an order of the Bombay High Court (Aurangabad Bench) which had split an FIR—quashing charges of assault and intimidation based on a settlement, while refusing to quash the charge of dacoity.

The Apex Court termed the continued partial prosecution as “unjustified” and quashed the ent

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