Sessions court can summon man not named in charge sheet: SC

A sessions court is empowered to issue summons to a man as an accused even though the person is not named in the charge sheet, the Supreme Court has ruled.

A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice (since retired) Altamas Kabir decided the issue on a reference following contradictory verdicts on the same.“The sessions court has jurisdiction, on committal of a case to it, to take cognisance of the offences of the persons not named as offenders but whose complicity in the case would be evident from the materials available on record.

“Hence, even without recording evidence, upon committal under Section 209, the sessions judge may summon those persons shown in column 2 (probed but not named as accused) of the police report (charge sheet) to stand trial along with those already named therein,” the verdict authored by Justice Kabir said.

The bench, also comprising Justice S S Nijjar, Ranjan Gogoi, M Y Eqbal and Vikramjit Sen, brushed aside the argument that the sessions court would have to wait till some application was filed for the purpose before summoning a person as an accused. The apex court verdict is significant in terms of recent summons issued against Bharti Telecom’s head Sunil Bharti Mittal and Essar chairman Ravi Ruia in a case relating to additional spectrum allocation during the NDA regime.

The 2G special court on March 19 issued summons against Mittal and Ruia, even though they were not named as accused in the charge sheet filed on 21 December, 2012. The trial court had held that there were enough materials to proceed against them. The proceedings against them were later stayed by the apex court.