After the verdict, there will be no summons against the accused: Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said that summons cannot be issued against a person as an accused in a criminal case after the verdict has been pronounced against the other accused and some others have been acquitted.

A bench comprising BR Gavai and K Vishwanathan allowed the appeal of Devendra Kumar Pal, set aside the judgment of the Allahabad High Court and quashed the summons issued to the appellant under Section 319 CrPC.

The appellant alleged after the trial of a murder case that the trial judge convicted some of the defendants and acquitted the others.

The trial judge was of the opinion that the current appellant should also be tried.

By order of 21 March 2012, the trial judge summarised the first part of the verdict for the accused, whom he found guilty, and at the same time pronounced the acquittal for the other accused, whom he found not guilty.

After lunch, the trial judge first recorded the judgment in respect of the convicted accused. Thereafter, the trial judge passed an order summoning the present appellant Pal for the hearing by invoking his powers under Section 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.

In Sukhpal Singh Khaira v. State of Punjab (2023), his counsel submitted that in the case, the conviction and sentence were first recorded and only thereafter an order under Section 319 of the CrPC was passed, which was not legally sustainable.

However, the State Government's legal adviser opposed the application on the ground that the Constitution Bench in Sukhpal Singh Khaira had held that if the judgment of conviction and sentence and summons under Section 319 of the Constituent Assembly are issued on the same day, the court will have to examine the facts and circumstances of the case.

The court also pointed out that in the Sukhpal Singh Khaira case, it had been held that such summons, whether after acquittal or imposition of punishment as part of the conviction, may not be maintainable.

“Since we consist of two judges, we are bound by the laws enacted by the Constitutional Court of this court,” the court explained.

The Court noted that in this case, on 21 March 2012, the guilty verdict for some of the accused and the acquittal for the other accused were passed in the first half of the day. In the second half of the day, the Court first passed a verdict for the convicted persons and only then issued an order under Section 319 of the Criminal Procedure Code summoning the current applicant.