The Supreme Court, in Ghanshyam Soni v. State (NCT of Delhi), held that for determining limitation under Section 468 of the CrPC, the date of filing the complaint or initiating prosecution—not the date on which the Magistrate takes cognizance—is decisive A Bench led by Justices B.V. Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma reaffirmed longstanding precedent from Bharat Damodar Kale and Sarah Mathew, emphasizing that once a complaint is filed within three years of the offence, any delay in judicial proceedings cannot prejudice the complainant The Court underlined that penalising a complainant for court delays would undermine justice, stressing that limitation rules are based on the filing date, not the cognizance date.

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