Summary: This blog clarifies the prior steps that must be taken before approaching a magistrate with an application under Section 156(3) CrPC- with reference to a recent judgement of the Supreme Court in Anurag Bhatnagar. We explain how the judgement in Anurag Bhatnagar ought not to be taken as a blanket exemption from the pursuing the prior steps.Continue Reading Steps under Section 154 CrPC no longer mandatory? Judgment in Anurag Bhatnagar-unique outlier or shift in jurisprudence?
Can a person who is neither named in the first information report (“FIR”) nor mentioned in the chargesheet, be summoned by a trial court later to face trial as an accused in respect of the very same FIR and chargesheet? If so, what would be the threshold and under what circumstances can such power be exercised?Continue Reading Summoning additional accused in criminal trial: When, why and how
The Supreme Court of India has recently taken important strides towards protecting personal liberty and curbing indiscriminate exercise of power by the Directorate of Enforcement (“ED”). In a fresh judgment in Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India[1], the Supreme Court has criticised disparate procedures being used by various officers of the ED across the country while arresting a person accused of committing an offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (“PMLA”), mandating that the provision of written grounds of arrest be provided to the arrested person as a matter of course and without exception.Continue Reading Right to Be Informed: Communicate Written Grounds of Arrest, SC Tells ED