Prospective affidavit requirement under Section 156(3) CrPC did not invalidate earlier complaints without a sworn affidavit.

The affidavit requirement for an application under Section 156(3) CrPC, as explained in Priyanka Srivastava, was treated as a prospective procedural safeguard designed to curb frivolous invocation of the Magistrate's power. Although judicial declarations ordinarily operate retrospectively unless expressly made prospective, the language and purpose of that ruling showed it was meant to apply only from that point onward. Complaints filed in 2010 and 2011 were therefore not invalidated for want of a sworn affidavit, and the criminal revisions failed.

---

---

Issues: Whether the requirement that an application under Section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 be supported by a sworn affidavit, as laid down in Priyanka Srivastava, applies retrospectively to complaints filed before that decision.

Analysis: The requirement of a sworn affidavit was treated as a prospective procedural direction intended to curb frivolous invocation of the Magistrate's power under Section 156(3). The judgment held that, unless a constitutional court expressly makes its ruling prospective, judicial declarations ordinarily operate retrospectively, but the language and purpose of the earlier decision showed that the affidavit requirement was meant to operate from that point onward. On that basis, the absence of an affidavit in complaints filed in 2010 and 2011 did not vitiate them.

Conclusion: The affidavit requirement under Section 156(3) was held to be prospective only, and the challenge to the criminal revisions failed.

---