RANJIT SINGH v. STATE OF PUNJAB
Citation: [1998] SUPP. 2 S.C.R. 8; 1998 INSC 378
Court: Supreme Court of India
Bench: M.M. PUNCHHI , K.T. THOMAS, S.S.M. QUADRI
Judgment date:
Case summary
1998 INSC 378. Supreme Court of India judgment dated 1998-09-22. RANJIT SINGH v. STATE OF PUNJAB. Read the judgment and case details on LawSphereX.
Judgment text
10 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1998] SUPP. 2 S. C. R. RANJIT SINGH v. STATE OF PUNJAB SEPTEMBER 22, 1998 [M. M. PUNCHHI, CJ. , K. T. THOMAS AND SYED SHAH MOHAMMED QUADRI, JJ. ] It is clear that during the said stage the Court of Session can deal only with the accused who is referred to in Section 209. The accused who, can appear or can be brought before a Session Court at that stage is only that accused who is referred to in Section 209. Section 227 deals with the power of the court to decide whether that accused is to be discharged or not. If he is not discharged the Sessions Court is obliged to frame a charge against that accused as per Section 228 of the Code. Thereafter the plea of that accused has to be recorded as enjoined by Section 229. The stage of evidence collection commences only next. (vide Sections 230 and 231 of the Code. ) 16 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1998] SUPP. 2 S. C. R.
So from the stage of committal till the Sessions Court reaches the stage indicated in Section 230 of the Code that Court can deal with only the accused referred to in Section 209 of the Code. There is no intennediary stage till then for the Session Court to add any other person to the array of the accused. Thus, once the Sessions Court takes cognizance of the offence pursuant to the committal order the only other stage when the Court is empowered to add any other person to the array of the accused is after reaching evidence collection when powers under Section 319 of the Code can be invoked. We are unable to find any other power for the Sessions Court to pemiit addition of new person or persons to the array of the accused. Of course it is not necessary for the court to wait until the entire evidence is collected for exercising the said powers. But then one more question may survive.
In a situation where the Sessions Judge notices from the materials produced but before any evidence is taken, that any other person should also have necessarily been made an accused (without which the framing of the charge would be defective or that it might lead to miscarriage of justice) is the Sessions Court completely powerless to deal with such a contingency? One such situation is cited by the learned Judges through an illustration narrated in Kishun Singh 's case (supra) as follows : "Where two persons A and B attack and kill X and it is found from the material placed before the Judge that the fatal blow was given by A whereas the blow inflicted by B had fallen on a non-vital part of the body of X. If A is not challaned by the police, the Judge may find it difficult to charge B for the murder of X with the aid of Section 34 IPC. If he cannot summon A, how does he frame the charge against B? " Another instance can be this.
All the materials produced by the investigating agency would clearly show the positive involvement of a person who was not shown in the array of accused due to some inadvertence or ommission. Should the court wait until evidence is collected to get that person arraigned in the case? Though such situations may arise only in extremely rare cases the Sessions Court is not altogether powerless to deal with such situations to prevent miscarriage of justice. It is then open to the Sessions Court to send a report to the High Court detailing the situation so that the high Court can RANJIT SINGH v. STATE OF PUNJAB [THOMAS, J. ] 17 in its inherent powers or revisional powers direct the committing Magistrate to rectify the committal order by issuing process to such left out accused. But -· ' we hasten to add that the said procedure need be resorted to only for rectifying or correcting such grave mistakes.
For the' foregoing reasons we find it difficult to support the observations in Kishun Singh 's case that powers of the Sessions Court under Section 193 of the Code to take cognizance of the o:! Jence would include the summoning of the person or persons whose complicity in the commission of the trial can prima facie be gathered from the materials available on record. In the result we set aside the impugned order of the Sessions Court adding the appellant as an accused in the case. However, we make it clear that we do so without prejudice to the powers of Sessions Court to add any person in the array of the accused under Section 319 of the Code. The appeal is thus allowed. R. K. S. Appeal allowed.
Source: Supreme Court eSCR. Dataset: Dattam Labs, CC BY 4.0. Text extracted automatically; compare with the source PDF for layout and accuracy.