Section 319 CrPC requires more-than-prima-facie evidence to summon persons exonerated during investigation.

The petitioners were named in an FIR alleging that they and others assaulted the informant’s wife, who was five months pregnant.

After investigation, the police filed a charge-sheet against three co-accused and exonerated the petitioners; the Magistrate did not take cognizance against them.

During the Sessions trial, the informant applied under Section 319 CrPC to summon the petitioners.

The trial court allowed the application on 27 September 2018, summoning them to face trial for offences under Sections 147, 149, 341, 504 and 314 IPC.

The petitioners challenged that order before the High Court.

1. Whether the evidence recorded at trial satisfied the standard required to summon the petitioners under Section 319 CrPC, notwithstanding their exoneration during investigation.

2. Whether the trial court’s summoning order should be quashed in light of the nature of the evidence relied upon.

Section 319 CrPC confers an extraordinary and discretionary power to summon a person who is not an accused where evidence before the court indicates that the person may have committed an offence triable with the accused.

Under Hardeep Singh v. State of Punjab, (2014) 3 SCC 92, the power must be exercised sparingly: the evidence must be stronger than that required to establish a prima facie case at the charge-framing stage, though it need not establish guilt as if conviction were inevitable.

Sukhpal Singh Khaira v. State of Punjab, (2023) 1 SCC 289, was cited on the availability of the Section 319 power before pronouncement of judgment.

The High Court considered the victim’s testimony that, after regaining consciousness at a clinic, she had not told the doctor that the petitioners assaulted her, together with PW-5’s admission that he had come to testify at the informant’s instance.

Although the opposite parties relied on the victim’s and other witnesses’ trial testimony identifying the petitioners, the Court held that the cited omissions and circumstances rendered the ocular evidence tainted and contradictory and insufficient to meet the Hardeep Singh threshold for summoning persons previously exonerated by the police.

It concluded that continuing proceedings against the petitioners under the impugned order would amount to an abuse of process.

It quashed the trial court’s order dated 27 September 2018 and allowed the application.