Jaipur<\/strong>: The Rajasthan High Court has held that a trial court can summon or recall a material witness under Section 311 CrPC even after prosecution evidence has been closed, provided the evidence is essential for the just decision of the case and is undertaken before the final judgement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Anil Kumar Upman set aside an order and held that the \u201cjust decision of the case\u201d remains the paramount consideration and observe that exercising power under Section 311 CrPC in such circumstances does not amount to reviewing the earlier orders of closing the evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The case arose from an FIR and during the trial, the petitioner and other prosecution witnesses were examined. Subsequently, three additional accused were summoned and charges were framed against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trial court eventually closed the prosecution evidence, following which the petitioner sought their re-summoning under Section 311 Cr.P.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The trial court rejected the contentions of petitioners to re- summon material witnesses under section 311 of Cr.P.C. holding that they cannot do so after the closure of prosecution evidences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court stressed that the crucial question is not whether the prosecution evidence has already been closed, but whether the evidence sought to be brought on record is essential for a fair adjudication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disagreeing with the decision of the trial court and placing its reliance on the precedents of the Apex Court, the Court hold that the power under Section 311 is wide and can be exercised at any stage of the trial where the evidence of a witness is necessary for arriving at a just decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Court while drawing the distinction between section 311 and section 362 clarified that Section 362 restricts a criminal court from reviewing or altering a judgment or final order after it has been signed, it does not prevent the court, during the pendency of the trial, from exercising its independent power under Section 311.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court also clarified that Section 362 CrPC does not bar the exercise of Section 311 power during the pendency of the trial, before the final judgment is pronounced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court observed \u201cThe two provisions operate in different fields and must be harmoniously construed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The High Court further noted that after three additional accused were summoned and charges were framed against them, the material prosecution witnesses were not examined at that stage. The trial court on receiving the application, rejected the application seeking to recall the witnesses, citing the closure of Prosecution evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The High Court, however, pointed out that these were not new witnesses, but key prosecution witnesses who had already been examined earlier. Their evidence became even more important after the three additional accused were brought into the case and charges were framed against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court allowed the petition, set aside the trial court\u2019s order, and directed re-examination of the material witnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Trial Court Can Recall or Re-Summon Witnesses Before Final Judgment If Their Evidence Is Essential for Justice Jaipur: The Rajasthan High Court has held that a trial court can summon or recall a material witness under Section 311 CrPC even after prosecution evidence has been closed, provided the evidence is essential for the just decision … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wppp_is_locked":false,"_wppp_selected_plans":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[2938,46,834,472,470,2939,320,1796,2937,2816,659,43,150,2935,2933,2934,2936,2924,951],"class_list":["post-9675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rajasthan-high-court","tag-closure-of-prosecution-evidence","tag-criminal-law","tag-criminal-procedure","tag-criminal-trial","tag-fair-trial","tag-just-decision-of-case","tag-justice-anil-kumar-upman","tag-laws-and-legals","tag-material-witnesses","tag-prosecution-evidence","tag-rajasthan-hc","tag-rajasthan-high-court","tag-rajasthan-legal-news","tag-re-summoning-of-witnesses","tag-recall-of-witnesses","tag-section-311-crpc","tag-section-362-crpc","tag-speedy-trial","tag-trial-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9676,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9675\/revisions\/9676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Scope of section 311 Cr.P.C.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Section 362 Cr.P.C. Not an Absolute Bar<\/h4>\n\n\n\n