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Issues: (i) Whether the amendments to the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992, changing the forum of trial from the Magistracy to the Court of Session and thereafter to Special Courts, applied retrospectively to pending prosecutions and offences committed before the amendments. (ii) Whether the accused had any vested right to be tried by the earlier forum, including on the basis of revision, summary trial, or alleged prejudice.
Issue (i): Whether the amendments to the Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992, changing the forum of trial from the Magistracy to the Court of Session and thereafter to Special Courts, applied retrospectively to pending prosecutions and offences committed before the amendments.
Analysis: A change of forum is ordinarily procedural and, therefore, retrospective unless the statute indicates a contrary intention. The amended Section 26(2) used mandatory language excluding courts inferior to the Court of Session, and Section 26B later provided that all offences under the Act, whether committed before or after commencement of the 2014 amendment, shall be taken cognizance of and tried by the Special Court. The statutory text thus displaced the earlier forum and covered pending matters as well as earlier offences. The legislative scheme also showed that the Special Court was not a new inferior forum but a Sessions-level court specially designated for trial under the Act.
Conclusion: The amendments operated retrospectively, and pending prosecutions for offences under the Act stood transferable to the Court of Session and then to the Special Court.
Issue (ii): Whether the accused had any vested right to be tried by the earlier forum, including on the basis of revision, summary trial, or alleged prejudice.
Analysis: There is no vested right to a particular forum of trial, and the availability of revision is not itself a vested right but only a procedural facility. The possibility of summary trial under the Code of Criminal Procedure did not control trials under the special statute, because the Act itself did not confer a summary-trial regime. The contention of prejudice was rejected because the appellate structure remained available and the change of forum followed the statutory command. The Court also held that the special enactment prevails over the general criminal procedure to the extent of inconsistency.
Conclusion: The accused had no vested right to continue before the earlier forum, and the objections based on revision, summary trial, and prejudice failed.
Final Conclusion: The prosecutions were held triable by the forum created by the amended special statute, and the contrary view of the High Court was set aside.
Ratio Decidendi: When a special enactment expressly changes the criminal trial forum in mandatory terms, the change is procedural and retrospective, and pending proceedings must be tried by the new forum unless the statute clearly preserves the old one.
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