Case Title: State of Punjab v. Jasbir Singh
The Supreme Court ruled that it is not required to allow a would-be-accused hearing before filing a complaint under Section 195/340 CrPC.
The Three Judges Bench, comprised of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Abhay S. Oka, and Vikram Nath, was responding to a two-judge bench's reference to it. The questions were as follows: i) Whether Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 mandates a preliminary inquiry and an opportunity of hearing to the would-be accused before a complaint is made under Section 195 of the Code by a Court. (ii) what is the scope and ambit of such preliminary inquiry?
This was done when the bench noted a disagreement between two and three-judge bench judgments. In Pritish vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors (2002) 1 SCC 253, it was held that the Court is not required to conduct a preliminary investigation into a complaint, but if the Court decides to do so, it should prepare a final set of facts that is expedient in the interest of justice that the offence is investigated further. It was remarked in Sharad Pawar vs. Jagmohan Dalmiya (2010) 15 SCC 290 that it is required to conduct a preliminary investigation as contemplated by Section 340 Cr.P.C. and "also to afford an opportunity of being heard to the defendants."
While answering the reference, the bench noted that what is reported in Sharad Pawar's case (supra) is only an order and not a judgment. The court observed:
An order is in the given factual scenario. The judgment lays down the principles of law. The scenario is that any order or judgment passed by this Court becomes a reportable exercise to create more volumes of reported cases. This, thus, has a possibility at times of causing some confusion on the legal principles prevalent. The observations in the quoted paragraph extracted aforesaid came out of the flow of the order rather than pronouncing any principles of law and that is why the Bench itself categorized what is observed as an order i.e, in the given factual scenario.
Referring to the judgment of the Constitution Bench in Iqbal Singh Marwah v. Meenakshi Marwah, the bench answered the reference as follows:
"We have little doubt that there is no question of opportunity of hearing in a scenario of this nature and we say nothing else but that a law as enunciated by the Constitution Bench in Iqbal Singh Marwah's case (supra) is in line with what was observed in Pritish's case (supra). Interestingly both the judgments in Pritish's case and the Constitution Bench judgment in Iqbal Singh Marwah's case (supra) have not been noted in order passed in Sharad Pawar's Case (supra). The answer thus to the first question raised would be in the negative. Insofar as the second question is concerned, the scope and ambit of such a preliminary inquiry, also stands resolved in terms of the Constitution Bench judgment of this Court in the Iqbal Singh Marwah's case (supra) as referred to aforesaid."