Magistrate Need Not Record Evidence Before Committing Session-Triable Cases, Supreme Court Holds
A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Kotiswar Singh rules that Section 244 CrPC does not apply to offences exclusively triable by Sessions Courts, setting aside a Punjab & Haryana High Court remand order.
The Supreme Court has set aside a Punjab & Haryana High Court order that directed a Judicial Magistrate to record prosecution evidence under Section 244 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 before committing a murder case to the Sessions Court. A division bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh, deciding Neeraj Gupta v. Pardeep Kumar Bansal & Ors., held on 1 July 2026 that Section 244 CrPC operates within the domain of warrant cases triable by Magistrates and has no application where the offence is exclusively triable by a Court of Sessions. The judgment settles a procedural question that had produced conflicting readings: whether a complaint-based case involving a Sessions-triable offence requires a full pre-committal evidence exercise before the Magistrate commits the accused.
How the Dispute Reached the Supreme Court
On 12 April 2007, a verbal and physical altercation occurred between the appellant-complainant Neeraj Gupta and his father on one side, and the respondents on the other. The appellant's father fell unconscious during the altercation and was declared dead at hospital. No FIR was registered immediately. The appellant gave a complaint to the Senior Superintendent of Police, Chandigarh on 16 April 2007, followed by a second complaint on 19 April 2007.
On 5 February 2008, the appellant approached the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Chandigarh under Section 156(3) CrPC. The application was accepted on 19 February 2008 and proceedings under Section 200 CrPC were initiated. Some prosecution evidence was recorded on 21 April 2008 and 10 January 2009. Summoning orders followed on 8 December 2009. The case was committed to the Sessions Court on 3 May 2010.
All three respondents moved the Punjab & Haryana High Court seeking quashing of the complaint and the summoning order. While that challenge was pending, the Sessions Court framed charges on 5 April 2011 — but only against respondent no. 2, Narinder Bansal. Respondents no. 1 and 3, Pardeep Kumar Bansal and Gurmail Singh, were discharged.
Aggrieved by the discharge, the appellant filed criminal revision CRR-993-2011 (O&M) before the High Court. Respondent no. 2 simultaneously challenged the charge-framing and summoning order through CRM-M-26058 of 2011. The High Court disposed of both revisions by a common order dated 2 September 2019, remanding the matter to the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Chandigarh to comply with Section 244 CrPC. The appellant brought that order to the Supreme Court by way of Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 776 of 2020, in which leave was granted and the matter was heard as a criminal appeal.
The High Court's Reasoning
The High Court held that Section 244 CrPC mandates a Magistrate to hear all prosecution evidence before committing a complaint-based case, regardless of whether the offence is ultimately triable by the Magistrate or the Sessions Court. The single judge reasoned that where a case is based on a complaint rather than a police report, there must be some pre-committal evidence beyond the pre-summoning material, so that the Magistrate does not function as a mere mouthpiece of the prosecution.
The High Court relied principally on three decisions: Ajoy Kumar Ghose v. State of Jharkhand, Sunil Mehta v. State of Gujarat, and Harinarayan G. Bajaj v. State of Maharashtra.
Why the Supreme Court Disagreed
The Supreme Court examined the three precedents on which the High Court rested its reasoning and found each was distinguishable.
In Ajoy Kumar Ghose, the coordinate bench had been addressing offences under Sections 177, 181, 468 and 471 IPC — offences triable by a Magistrate. The finding that a Magistrate must record evidence under Section 244 was made, the Court said, squarely in the context of Magistrate-triable offences and had no purchase in the present case, which concerned an allegation under Section 302 IPC, exclusively triable by the Sessions Court.
In Harinarayan G. Bajaj, the question had been the interpretation of Section 319 CrPC and the right of additionally summoned accused to cross-examine witnesses. The Court found that neither the right of cross-examination nor the meaning of the word “proceedings” as used in Section 319 arose in the present case. Reliance on that judgment was therefore misplaced.
In Sunil Mehta, the issue was whether evidence recorded under Section 202 CrPC prior to taking cognizance could count as evidence for framing charge. The sections involved were Sections 406 and 114 IPC, well within the Magistrate's jurisdiction. The distinguishing factor, the Court noted, was that the entire ambit of that case lay within powers the CrPC grants to a Magistrate, unlike the present case.
The Statutory Architecture and Precedent the Court Applied
The Court set out the relevant provisions in sequence. Section 200 CrPC, in Chapter XV, governs examination of a complainant when a Magistrate takes cognizance on complaint. Section 209, in Chapter XVI, governs commitment to the Sessions Court when the offence is exclusively triable there: once it appears to the Magistrate that the offence is so triable, the Magistrate must commit the case and send the record to the Sessions Court. Section 244, in Chapter XIX Part B, governs the procedure in warrant cases instituted otherwise than on police report — cases that remain before the Magistrate for trial.
The Court drew on Supdt. and Remembrancer of Legal Affairs v. Ashutosh Ghosh, which held that under the CrPC the only requirement from the Magistrate is to determine whether the offence is exclusively triable by the Sessions Court, and that no evidence need be taken for that purpose.
The Constitution Bench in Hardeep Singh v. State of Punjab had observed that at the pre-trial stage the Magistrate performs acts in the nature of administrative work — ensuring compliance with Sections 207 and 208 CrPC and committing the matter — and is expressly forbidden from applying his mind to the merits. The Court found those observations directly relevant.
Two three-judge bench decisions reinforced the conclusion. In Sanjay Gandhi v. Union of India, Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer described the Magistrate's power at the committal stage as a “narrow inspection hole” and said that going into the merits would frustrate the Legislature's purpose. In State of Orissa v. Debendra Nath Padhi and Rattiram v. State of M.P., the Court analysed how Parliament had consciously stripped away the elaborate pre-committal inquiry that existed under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898. Sections 207 and 207-A of the old Code had required the Magistrate to hold an inquiry, take evidence, permit cross-examination and re-examination, and decide whether to discharge or commit — a process the Law Commission's 41st Report described as “largely a waste of time and effort.” The new Section 209 replaced that structure with a stripped-down commitment mechanism.
The Court found that accepting the High Court's reasoning would require the same witnesses to depose about the same facts at least twice — once before the Magistrate and again at trial before the Sessions Court. This, it held, served no purpose and found no support in the law.
Outcome
The Supreme Court held that the High Court had proceeded on an erroneous reading of the law. The impugned judgment and order dated 2 September 2019 was set aside.
The Court turned to the substantive grievance that had driven the appellant's revision before the High Court: whether the Sessions Court erred in not framing charges against respondents no. 1 and 3. Since the remand to the Magistrate was held to be legally incorrect, the Court directed the High Court to hear both the appellant's revision petition (CRR-993-2011) and respondent no. 2's revision petition (CRM-M-26058 of 2011) afresh and decide them independently.
Given that charges against respondent no. 2 had been framed as far back as 2011, the Court requested that both petitions be decided as expeditiously as possible and in any event not later than nine months. Parties were directed to appear before the High Court on 16 July 2026.
The appeal was allowed. Pending applications, if any, were disposed of.