Vinod Bihari Lal vs. State of Uttar Pradesh

The Supreme Court has quashed criminal proceedings under the stringent Uttar Pradesh Gangsters Act against a man, calling the case an "abuse of the process of law." The Court found that the police had wrongly applied the Act, as the underlying cases were mainly about financial fraud and did not involve the kind of violence or threat required by the law. More importantly, the Court slammed the authorities for their "casual and cavalier" approach, noting that the official approval for the case was given by simply signing a pre-printed form without any real application of mind or following mandatory procedures.