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Rajesh and Ors. v. The State of Haryana

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 613Decided 1 May 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 813 of 2019
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice M.R. Shah

Background

An FIR was lodged describing a group attack by ten named persons armed with weapons such as swords, pistols, hockey sticks, and iron bars on two victims near Panipat, leading to charges under IPC Sections including 302 (murder), 307 (attempted murder), and others. During trial, prosecution witnesses (P.W.1 and P.W.2) gave evidence specifically implicating the appellants, who had not originally been charge-sheeted. The trial court summoned them to face trial under Section 319 CrPC (which allows courts to add new accused based on evidence during trial), and the High Court dismissed their revision petition against this summoning order.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the sworn testimony of P.W.1 and P.W.2 naming the appellants and describing their specific roles in the attack qualified as "evidence" during trial, and relying on its earlier Constitution Bench ruling in Hardeep Singh, confirmed that persons not originally charge-sheeted can validly be summoned to face trial under Section 319 CrPC on the strength of such evidence. The Court also rejected the appellants' argument that earlier magistrate orders had "discharged" them and therefore barred their later summoning, clarifying that those earlier orders had only released them from custody, not discharged them from the case in the legal sense of acquittal/discharge. Finding no error by either the trial court or the High Court, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the summoning order.

Lesson Learnt

Being released from police/judicial custody at an earlier stage is not the same as being legally "discharged" from a criminal case: a court can still summon a person to stand trial later under Section 319 CrPC if witness testimony during the trial specifically implicates them, even if they were never originally charge-sheeted.

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

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