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Periyasami and Ors. v. S. Nallasamy

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 371Decided 14 Mar 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 456 of 2019
Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud · Justice Hemant Gupta

Background

Following a matrimonial dispute, the complainant alleged that his wife's family and a large group of relatives (11 named, with many more unnamed) trespassed into his house, threatened him, and demanded money. After the original 11 accused were chargesheeted, the complainant, during his own testimony at trial, named 20 additional people and sought to have them summoned as additional accused under Section 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The trial Magistrate refused, but the Madras High Court, in revision, allowed the application and ordered the 20 additional persons to be arrayed as accused.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's order, holding that the power under Section 319 CrPC is an extraordinary power to be used sparingly, and only where there is strong and cogent evidence, more than a mere possibility of involvement, against the proposed accused. Here, none of the 20 additional names had appeared anywhere in the original FIR or in witness statements recorded during investigation; they surfaced for the first time only in the complainant's courtroom testimony, in what the Court viewed as an attempt to "cast the net wide" in a family/matrimonial dispute without any real evidentiary basis. The Court restored the Magistrate's order declining to summon the additional accused.

Lesson Learnt

A criminal complainant cannot simply add new names to the list of accused mid-trial based on bare assertions; courts require strong, specific evidence before expanding the list of people who must stand trial, to prevent the process from being misused to harass extended family members in personal disputes.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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