THE TOP COURT EXPLAINED THE AMBIT AND SCOPE OF SECTION 319 OF THE CRPC

The Supreme Court bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and MR Shah explained the scope of Section 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) which empowers the court to "proceed against persons other than those appearing guilty of the offence" in the case of Manjeet Singh v. the State of Haryana. The SC passed the judgment in a plea summoning an additional accused in a murder case under section 319 of CrPC.

The Sessions Judge and Punjab & Haryana High Court dismissed the application u/s 319 and refused to summon the person appearing to be guilty, leading to the present appeal. 

The SC referred to various judgments to understand the scope of Section 319 CrPC and summarised the following:

1. It is available for the empowerment of the court to assure that the criminal administration of justice serves properly;

2. The provision has been properly codified by the legislature indicating how the court ultimately find the truth and so that an innocent does not get punished; 

3. The provision allows the court to initiate against the person who is not accused of the case before;

4. It can be exercised at any stage after the trial proceeds, and the charge sheet is filed and before the final judgment is passed. Except at the stage of Sections 207/208 CrPc;

5. Evidence in sec 319 means evidence made before the court - statement or documents produced before the court;

6. Once the Magistrate/court is convinced by the evidence appearing in examination-in-chief, it can exercise the power u/s 319 CrPC

7. The Court can exercise power even at the completion stage of examination-in-chief and need not wait till the evidence is tested on cross-examination.

While applying the above principle, the Court held that the Sessions Court and the HC erred in dismissing the application and hence directed the Sessions court to summon the person.

Author: Papiha Ghoshal