The quiet expansion of Section 482 after the new criminal codes

The inherent power of the High Court survived the transition from the Code of Criminal Procedure to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita substantially intact. What has changed is the volume and the kind of matter now being brought under it.

A renumbering, not a rewrite

The operative language is carried forward almost verbatim. Counsel citing pre-2024 authority need do no more than note the correspondence, and courts have accepted the older line without argument.

Where the expansion is visible

The growth is in settlement-based quashing of commercial disputes with a criminal veneer. Benches appear more willing to close proceedings where the parties have compounded, treating continuation as an abuse of process rather than a matter for the trial court.