TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2009 (5) TMI 980
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....ound Rajwinder Singh alias Raju being surrounded by the accused. He was attacked by them by their respective weapons in their hands, till they became sure of his death. After the accused left the place of occurrence, PW-1 went near Raju and made him drink water. Sarabjit Singh and Saroop Singh, appellants herein, while standing near the village, shouted that Raju had not died whereupon Gurdip Singh, appellant in Criminal Appeal arising out of SLP (Crl.) No.19 of 2007, Hira Singh and Bhagwant Masih again came near him and caused further physical injuries to him. They thereafter fled away. 4. Contention of the accused, however, in that case is that the deceased Raju was a vagabond having numerous criminal cases registered against him and a large number of proceedings were initiated. He was catched by a mob of villagers being fed up with his activities. Allegations against the appellants have been levelled because of political rivalry. 5. The investigating officer upon completion of the investigation filed a chargesheet against ten persons and filed a final report against the appellants herein. The accused persons were standing their trial. 6. Before the learned Sessions Judge, Bal....
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....ircumstances of the case may require, for the purpose aforesaid. (3) Any person attending the Court although not under arrest or upon a summons, may be detained by such court for the purpose of the inquiry into, or trial of, the offence which he appears to have committed. (4) Where the Court proceeds against any person under Sub-section (1) then- (a) the proceedings in respect of such person shall be commenced afresh, and witnesses re-heard; (b) subject to the provisions of Clause (a), the case may proceed as if such person had been an accused person when the Court took cognizance of the offence upon which the inquiry or trial was commenced." 12. The extent of the power of a Sessions Judge to summon persons other than the accused to stand trial in a pending case came up for consideration before this Court in Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Ram Kishan Rastogi [(1983) 1 SCC 1]. Therein, this Court while holding that the provision confers a discretionary jurisdiction on the court added "this is really an extraordinary power which is conferred on the Court and should be used very sparingly and only if compelling reasons exist for taking cognizance against the other person agains....
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.... exclusively by the Court of Session. Section 193 provides for the power of the Court of Session to take cognizance of any offence. It uses the expression "cognizance of any offence" and not that of "offender". These three provisions read with Section 319 make it clear that the words "could be tried together with the accused" in Section 319 are only for the purpose of finding out whether such a person could be put on trial for the offence..." In Rakesh v. State of Haryana [(2001) 6 SCC 248], this Court held: "13. Hence, it is difficult to accept the contention of the learned counsel for the appellants that the term "evidence" as used in Section 319 of the Criminal Procedure Code would mean evidence which is tested by cross-examination. The question of testing the evidence by crossexamination would arise only after addition of the accused. There is no question of cross-examining the witness prior to adding such person as accused. The section does not contemplate an additional stage of first summoning the person and giving him an opportunity of cross-examining the witness who has deposed against him and thereafter deciding whether such person is to be added as accused or not. The w....
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.... to deal with such situations to prevent a miscarriage of justice. It is then open to the Sessions Court to send a report to the High Court detailing the situation so that the High Court can in its inherent powers or revisional powers direct the committing Magistrate to rectify the committal order by issuing process to such left-out accused. But we hasten to add that the said procedure need be resorted to only for rectifying or correcting such grave mistakes. This Court in Lok Pal v. Nihal Singh [(2006) 10 SCC 192] observed: "...The court, while examining an application under Section 319 of the Code, has also to bear in mind that there is no compelling duty on the court to proceed against other persons. In a nutshell, for exercise of discretion under Section 319 of the Code all relevant factors, including those noticed above, have to be kept in view and an order is not required to be made mechanically merely on the ground that some evidence had come on record implicating the person sought to be added as an accused. It was furthermore observed: "19. In these circumstances, therefore, if the prosecution can at any stage produce evidence which satisfies the court that the other ac....
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....rectness of Mohd. Shafi (supra), two questions have been referred to a larger Bench, which are as under: "(1) When the power under Sub-section (1) of Section 319 of the Code of addition of accused can be exercised by a Court? Whether application under Section 319 is not maintainable unless the cross-examination of the witness is complete? (2) What is the test and what are the guidelines of exercising power under Sub-section (1) of Section 319 of the Code? Whether such power can be exercised only if the Court is satisfied that the accused summoned in all likelihood would be convicted?" Mr. Mehta would also draw our attention to Bholu Ram v. State of Punjab & Anr. [JT 2008 (9) SC 504]. Whereas Hardeep Singh (supra) is not a judgment in that sense of the term; in Bholu Ram (supra) the principal question which arose for consideration of this Court was as to whether an order passed under Section 319 of the Code can be recalled which was answered in the negative. 15. For the purpose of this case, it is not necessary to proceed on the basis that the decision in Mohd. Shafi (supra) should be applied in all fours. 16. We have noticed hereinbefore that Mohd. Shafi (supra) has been expl....