{"id":271520,"date":"2022-08-11T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=271520"},"modified":"2022-08-11T10:36:53","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T05:06:53","slug":"clearing-of-prosecution-evidence-not-an-absolute-bar-from-re-examining-materials-witnesses-under-section-311-crpc-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2022\/08\/11\/clearing-of-prosecution-evidence-not-an-absolute-bar-from-re-examining-materials-witnesses-under-section-311-crpc-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Clearing of prosecution evidence not an absolute bar from re-examining materials\/witnesses under Section 311 CrPC: Supreme Court\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court:<\/span><\/b> While determining the powers of the Courts under Section 311 CrPC, the Division Bench of <\/span>Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud<\/span><\/b>* and AS Bopanna, JJ., held that the Court is vested with broad and wholesome power to summon and examine or recall and re-examine any material witness at any stage and the closing of prosecution evidence is not an absolute bar.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Background<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

The instant appeal was filed by the appellant\u2014the spouse of an advocate who was brutally murdered outside his office on 18-11-2015\u2014to assail the impugned orders of the M.P. High Court rejecting an application under Section 311 CrPC seeking to summon the nodal officers of certain cellular entities along with the decoding register to trace the mobile location of the accused persons.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

An FIR was filed regarding the incident dated 18-11-2015 for an offence punishable under Section 302 read with Section 34 of the Penal Code 1860. The investigation was initiated. The post mortem report indicated that the homicide was caused due to a firearm injury and following persons were arrested during the course of the investigation: Vikas, Sawan, Mangilal, Suresh and Raju.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the enclosures to the supplementary charge-sheet were certificates of the nodal officers of certain cellular companies, namely Airtel, Reliance, Idea, and Vodafone. Upon the commencement of the recording of evidence at the trial, the nodal officers were examined.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Impugned Order<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

The genesis of the issue was that an application was filed by the prosecution under Section 311 CrPC to summon the nodal officer of Idea and under Section 91 to produce the call data records of two mobile numbers. A similar application was filed under Section 311 seeking to call for the production of the decoding register.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The aforesaid applications were dismissed by the Trial Court on the ground that the document which the prosecution desired to summon did not form a part of the investigation; and that the document had not been obtained during the course of the investigation. In appeal, the High Court, while affirming the order of the Trial Court held:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n