Supreme Court Restores Section 311 Application, Faults Prosecution for Not Examining Doctor and IO

A bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran reversed Bihar courts that blocked a complainant's bid to summon the Medical Officer and Investigating Officer in a nine-year-old assault trial.

The Supreme Court on 24 August 2026 set aside concurrent orders of the Additional District and Sessions Judge–II, Gopalganj, and the Patna High Court that had refused to allow the examination of certain witnesses after the recording of the accused's statement under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 had already begun. The injured complainant, Anil Singh @ Anil Kumar Singh, had filed the application under Section 311 CrPC seeking examination of his father, the Medical Officer who attended to the injured, and the Investigating Officer. Both courts below dismissed the application as a dilatory tactic aimed at plugging lacunae in the prosecution's case. The Supreme Court disagreed, directing the trial court to permit the examination of all three witnesses and to restart the Section 313 proceedings from where they were paused.

How the Dispute Reached the Supreme Court

The underlying incident involved an altercation in which accused No. 1 was alleged to have attacked the appellant's father with a spear, accused No. 2 to have struck the appellant on the head with a sword, and accused Nos. 3 and 4 to have assaulted with an iron rod. After investigation, charges were laid only against accused Nos. 1 and 2; the proceedings against accused Nos. 3 and 4, both women, were dropped. Cognizance was taken only against A1 and A2, and the trial commenced in 2017.

By the time the Section 311 application was filed, the trial had essentially concluded and examination of the accused under Section 313 CrPC had commenced on 13 April 2024. The appellant's father, who was himself injured in the incident, had not been examined as a witness. Nor had the Medical Officer who treated the injured, nor the Investigating Officer — witnesses the appellant described as indispensable to the prosecution's case.

The Sessions Judge–II, Gopalganj, rejected the application. The Patna High Court confirmed that rejection by order dated 8 May 2026 in CRLM No. 64140 of 2024. The complainant then approached the Supreme Court by way of Special Leave Petition (Crl.) No. 12169 of 2026, which was converted into a criminal appeal after leave was granted.

Why the Court Intervened Despite the Section 313 Stage

The Court acknowledged that it would not ordinarily entertain a petition under Article 136 of the Constitution in such circumstances. The singular factor that moved it to do so was what it called “a clear failure of the prosecution to properly conduct the trial.”

The Court's concern was concrete: the father of the appellant was injured in the very incident that gave rise to the trial, yet he was never put in the witness box. The Medical Officer who attended to the injured and the Investigating Officer — described by the Court as “crucial witnesses” — were similarly absent from the prosecution's evidence. The Court found that the absence of these witnesses could lead to an acquittal, not because the prosecution's case was weak on the merits, but because of what it described as shoddy prosecution.

The courts below had treated the application as an attempt to fill gaps in an already-concluded prosecution case. The Supreme Court drew a distinction that was decisive: it is the prosecution that proffers witnesses in a trial, and the failure here was being pointed out not by the accused but by the de facto complainant who was himself an injured witness. The Court found it was not a case of plugging prosecution lacunae in the conventional sense; it was a case where the prosecution had simply omitted to examine key witnesses.

The Trial Court's Responsibility When Prosecution Falls Short

Beyond the immediate directions, the Court added a caution addressed to trial courts generally. It said that when there is a total failure of the prosecution, the court must question the prosecution's conduct with alacrity rather than function as a passive observer. In the Court's framing, an unbiased adjudicator still carries the responsibility to ensure that the best evidence is not suppressed.

In this case, neither the Medical Officer nor the Investigating Officer had been examined by the prosecution before it closed its evidence. The Court treated this as a situation that demanded the trial court's active attention under Section 311, which empowers any court to summon or recall any person as a witness at any stage of a proceeding if their evidence appears essential to a just decision.

Directions to the Trial Court

The Court set aside both the order of the Additional District and Sessions Judge–II, Gopalganj, and the impugned order of the Patna High Court. The Section 311 application was restored before the trial court with the following specific directions:

First, the prayer for examination of the injured witness, the Medical Officer, and the Investigating Officer was to be permitted without qualification. Second, if the prosecution had left out any other witnesses beyond those three, the trial court was directed to give careful consideration to any request for their examination as well. Third, once examined, each witness was to be made available for cross-examination. Fourth, examination of the accused under Section 313 CrPC was to recommence from the stage at which it had been stopped, with the additional requirement that any incriminating circumstance emerging from the testimony of the newly examined witnesses be put to the accused before that process concluded.

Counsel for the appellant included Mr. Ashish Kumar Pandey, Mr. Kumar Harshvardhan, Mr. Suyash Rawat, Mr. Aman Naqvi, and Mr. Mayank Pandey (AOR). The respondents were represented by Mr. Samir Ali Khan (AOR), Mr. Pranjal Sharma, and Mr. Kashif Irshad Khan Faridi.

Order

The criminal appeal was allowed on 24 August 2026. The orders of the Additional District and Sessions Judge–II, Gopalganj, and the Patna High Court were set aside. The Section 311 CrPC application was restored before the trial court, which was directed to permit examination of the injured witness, the Medical Officer, and the Investigating Officer, and to resume Section 313 proceedings thereafter in the manner specified. All pending applications were disposed of.