The Apex Court on 24.01.2019, in Dev Wati and Ors. v The State of Haryana and Anr.,had dismissed the appeal that had been made against the High Court of Punjab and Haryana‘s judgment which had upheld the Sessions Court’s, (Faridabad) judgment herein the complainant’s application was permitted while the appellants had been summoned for facing trial by the Sessions Court .

FACTS:  A missing complaint had been filed by the deceased’s bother, wherein after forty-eight hours, the dead body was rescued. The accused were tried for committing murder followed by common intention and other offences. Further, an application had been filed by the complainant in the Court of Sessions, that was eventually permitted upon the very ground it was only upon the accused’s insistence that the deceased had agreed to accompany them upon being told by the appellants and the deceased wife about reching a compromise in their ongoing marital litigation with his wife.

In the mean time, there were complaints for several offences as well as proceedings pertaining to maintenance cases pending against the deceased. When the FIR was registered, the report of investigation did not consist o f the names of the accused appellants although the post-mortem report did indicate homicide and injuries on various organs of the deceased. As a result the judgment of trial passed by the Sessions Court was further upheld by the High Court.
An appeal was made to the Apex Court against such judgment.

ISSUE: Whether the High Court has the power by the virtue of Sec 319 (1) of Cr.P.C. for proceeding against persons who “appear” to have been guilty for an offence, although not held accused in the Court?

DECISION HELD BY THE APEX COURT:
The Apex Court while dismissing the appeal concluded that it found no error in the judgment of the High Court.

Full Judgment:

[embeddoc url=”https://www.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2015/3090/3090_2015_Judgement_24-Jan-2019.pdf” download=”all”]