Court Can Make Complaint U/S 195 or 340 Cr.P.C Without Hearing The Accused : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court stated that it is not required to provide a potential accuser with a hearing chance prior to filing a complaint under Section 195/340 CrPC.

Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Abhay S. Oka, and Vikram Nath made up the Three Judges Bench, which was responding to a reference from a two judge bench. The questions were: 1) Does Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 require a preliminary investigation and an opportunity for the potential accuser to be heard before a court files a complaint under Section 195 of the Code? (ii) What are the parameters and reach of such a preliminary investigation?

The bench had detected a discrepancy between the positions taken by the decisions of two and three judges at the time. In Pritish v. State of Maharashtra & Ors (2002) 1 SCC 253, it was decided that while the court is not required to conduct a preliminary investigation into a complaint, if it chooses to do so, it should compile a complete set of the facts that would be useful in determining whether the offence should be looked into further. In Sharad Pawar v. Jagmohan Dalmiya (2010) 15 SCC 290, it was said that a preliminary investigation, as required by Section 340 of the Criminal Procedure Code, must be conducted in order to "to allow the defendants an opportunity of being heard."

The bench stated in its response to the reference that the information presented in Sharad Pawar's case (above) is just an order, not a decision.

State of Punjab vs Jasbir Singh