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Sunil Kumar Gupta & Ors. v. State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors.

Criminal Appeal · 2019 INSC 284Decided 27 Feb 2019
Criminal Appeal No. 395 of 2019
Justice R. Banumathi · Justice R. Subhash Reddy

Background

Shilpa, married in 2006, died after being set on fire in 2012; her dying declaration named only her sister-in-law Chanchal @ Babita as the person who poured kerosene on her, and the police charge-sheeted only Chanchal for murder, finding no case against the other in-laws for dowry harassment or dowry death. The trial court nevertheless summoned several in-laws (the appellants) under Section 319 CrPC to stand trial for murder as well, and the Allahabad High Court upheld that summoning order in revision. The in-laws appealed to the Supreme Court against being made additional accused.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that neither the victim's dying declaration nor the complainant's statements attributed any specific act to the appellants, and the evidence contained only vague, general allegations without naming them or describing their role, falling well short of the "much stronger evidence than mere probability of complicity" that a Constitution Bench (Hardeep Singh) requires before invoking Section 319 CrPC. Since the investigating officer had already found no offence made out against them even under the dowry-harassment provisions, the Court found no justification for summoning the appellants for murder or dowry offences. It set aside the High Court's order and allowed the appeals, while clarifying it expressed no opinion on the merits and directing the trial to proceed against the originally charge-sheeted accused.

Lesson Learnt

A person cannot be summoned as an additional accused mid-trial merely on vague suspicion or general allegations: the law requires strong, specific evidence of that person's role before they can be dragged into a criminal trial they were not originally charged in.

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

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