Once Cognizance Is Taken, Courts Have a Duty to Summon All Prima Facie Offenders: SC

A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan said, the position of law is clear that the Court of Sessions has power under Section 193 CrPC to summon a person as accused to stand trial, even if he has not been charge-sheeted by the police and whose complexity in the crime appears in the evidence available on record.

''To hold in such a situation, that if the investigating agency blatantly exonerates an accused person and the Magistrate does not consequently commit him, the Court of Sessions itself would be rendered powerless to put such an offender in the dock at the very opening stage of the trial, would to our mind only hamper the cause of justice rather than advance it,'' the bench said.

The court emphasised, upon the committal by the Magistrate, the Court of Sessions is empowered to take cognizance of the whole of the incident constituting the offence. The Court of Sessions is thus invested with the complete jurisdiction to summon any individual accused of the crime, it said.

The court pointed out it is well-settled that procedure is the hand-maid of justice and is not to be employed as a roadblock thereto.

''Therefore on the larger canon of construction there appears to be no logic for narrowly construing the statute so as to denude the Court of Sessions of the power to summon a person to stand his trial at the outset even when wholly convinced of a prima facie case against him on the basis of materials in the final report which is admittedly adequate for framing a charge against the committed accused under section 228 or discharging him under section 227 of the Code,'' the bench said.

In the earlier provision, the court pointed out, the requirement was that the accused must have been committed to the Court of Session by a Magistrate. The legislature made a change by deleting the word ‘accused’ and provided instead that the ‘case’ should have been committed to the Court of Session.

"The Court of Sessions takes cognizance of the case or the offence as a whole and, therefore, is entitled to summon anyone who, on the material before it, appears to be guilty of such offence to stand trial before it. To highlight, what is committed to the Court of Sessions by the Magistrate is the case or the offence for trial and not the individual offender therefor. To hold otherwise would be again relapsing into the fallacy that cognizance is taken against individual accused persons and not of the offence as such. This was the evil which the amendment sought to remedy in express terms,'' the bench said.

The court here dismissed an appeal filed by Kallu Nat alias Mayank Kumar Nagar against the Allahabad High Court's judgment of April 3, 2025.

The High Court has rejected the revision application filed by the petitioner-herein and thereby affirmed the order passed by the Additional District and Sessions Judge-Fast Track Court, Kanpur Dehat, issuing summons against him in a case lodged with the police station Shivali, District Kanpur Dehat for the offence punishable under Section(s) 302 and 376 of the Indian Penal Code.

The sessions court's order came on an application filed by the husband of the victim, even though the crime branch which investigated the matter had filed a charge sheet against one Ajay.

The appellant's counsel contended the trial court would have been justified to summon the petitioner to face the trial in exercise of the powers under Section 319 of the CrPC only on the basis of oral evidence.

He said there was no scope for the trial court to summon the petitioner in exercise of the powers under Section 193 of the CrPC as the Magistrate while committing the case to the Court of Session had already taken cognizance of the offence and in such circumstances the trial court by invoking Section 193 of the CrPC could not have taken cognizance for the second time.

The bench, however, said, ''We have no hesitation in saying that there is no merit, worth the name, in the contention. It is absolutely incorrect to assert that the petitioner could have been summoned as an accused only during the course of trial under the provisions of Section 319 CrPC. Section 319 CrPC stands absolutely on a different footing.''

The court pointed out, the glaring instances necessitating the exercise of such power or duty would be when the investigating agency in its report under Section 173 without any reason or basis whatsoever exonerates a person specifically named in the first information report and fully implicated in the crime.

"Indeed, such an example is provided pertinently in the present case itself. Herein the Court of Session has come to the categoric conclusion that the petitioner though not named at the earliest in the FIR, yet the investigation revealed his involvement along with the charge sheeted accused,'' the bench said.

In its conclusion, the court said, once the court takes cognizance of the offence (not of the offender), it becomes the court's duty to find out the real offenders and if it comes to the conclusion that besides the persons put up for trial by the police some others are also involved in the commission of the crime, it is the court's duty to summon them to stand trial along with those already named, since summoning them would only be part of the process of taking cognizance.

"Once the case in respect of the offence qua the accused, who are before the Court, is committed and cognizance is taken, the embargo under Section 193 regarding taking cognizance only by committal goes. Summoning additional persons will then be regarded as incidental to the cognizance already taken on committal and as, a part, of, the normal process that follows. A fresh committal of such person is not necessary,'' the bench said.

The court also pointed out Section 319(4)(b) enacts a deeming provision in that behalf dispensing with the formal committal order by providing that the person added will be deemed to have been an accused even when cognizance was taken first.

"Cognizance is of the offence and not the offender and it is the duty of the court to find out who the offenders are. Proceedings could be instituted and cognizance taken also against persons not known at that time,'' it said.

The court dismissed the appeal and directed the trial court to complete the proceedings within six months.

Case Title: Kallu Nat @ Mukesh Kumar Nagar Vs State of UP And Anr

Judgment Date: August 5, 2025

Bench: Justices J B Pardiwala and R Mahadevan