Neeraj Gupta v. Pardeep Kumar Bansal (2026): a Magistrate need not record Section 244 evidence before committing a Sessions-triable complaint

On 1 July 2026, a Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol (who authored the opinion) and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh decided Neeraj Gupta v. Pardeep Kumar Bansal (2026 INSC 660), setting aside a judgment of the High Court of Punjab & Haryana that had required a Judicial Magistrate to record evidence under Section 244 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, in a complaint case where the offences alleged were exclusively triable by the Court of Session. The Supreme Court held that the High Court had proceeded on an erroneous reading of the law.

The facts

The dispute has a long history. On 12 April 2007, a verbal and physical altercation took place between the appellant-complainant and his father on one side and the respondents on the other. The father fell down, lost consciousness, and was declared dead at the hospital. No first information report was registered at that stage; the appellant gave complaints to the Senior Superintendent of Police, Chandigarh, on 16 and 19 April 2007.

On 5 February 2008, the appellant sought a direction before the Judicial Magistrate First Class, Chandigarh, under Section 156(3) CrPC. That request was accepted on 19 February 2008, and the process under Section 200 CrPC was set in motion. Certain evidence was recorded on 21 April 2008 and 10 January 2009 before summoning orders were issued on 8 December 2009. The case was committed to the jurisdictional Court of Session on 3 May 2010.

While the three respondents were before the High Court seeking to quash the complaint and the summoning order, the Sessions Court framed charges on 5 April 2011 — but only against respondent no. 2, Narinder Bansal. Aggrieved by the discharge of respondents no. 1 and 3 (Pardeep Kumar Bansal and Gurmail Singh), the complainant filed a criminal revision (CRR-993-2011). It was in that revision, by a common order dated 2 September 2019, that the High Court remanded the matter to the Magistrate to comply with Section 244 CrPC.

The reasoning below

The High Court read Section 244 as requiring a Magistrate to hear all prosecution evidence irrespective of whether the offence was triable by the Magistrate or by the Court of Session. Its logic was that once the legislature had prescribed a procedure for recording pre-charge evidence before framing charges in a Magisterial trial, it would be imprudent to treat that requirement as inessential merely because a serious offence happened to be Sessions-triable; the Magistrate, it reasoned, must examine material "other than the pre-summoning evidence" before committal, so as not to act as "a mouthpiece of the prosecution." In support, it relied principally on three decisions: Ajoy Kumar Ghose v. State of Jharkhand, Sunil Mehta v. State of Gujarat, and Harinarayan G. Bajaj v. State of Maharashtra.

The question

The issue, as the Supreme Court framed it, was narrow: whether a Magistrate must record evidence when the offence is strictly triable by the Court of Session — here, where the allegations were inter alia under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

The answer turned on where Section 244 sits in the statutory scheme. It falls within Chapter XIX, Part B — "Cases instituted otherwise than on police report" — and applies to warrant cases, obliging the Magistrate to "hear the prosecution and take all such evidence as may be produced." Section 209, in Chapter XVI, governs commitment to the Court of Session "when [the] offence is triable exclusively by it," and requires only that the Magistrate, on it appearing that the offence is so triable, comply with Sections 207 or 208, commit the case, transmit the record, and notify the Public Prosecutor. The two provisions address different situations.

What the Court held

The Court found the High Court's three authorities inapposite. Ajoy Kumar Ghose held that recording evidence under Section 244 was incumbent on a Magistrate — but in the context of offences triable by the Magistrate, which these were not. Harinarayan G. Bajaj concerned the right to cross-examine additional accused summoned under Section 319, an issue that did not arise here. Sunil Mehta dealt with whether Section 202 evidence could count towards framing charge in a warrant case squarely within the Magistrate's own trial powers — again a distinguishing feature absent here. Reliance on all three was misplaced.

The Court's practical objection was blunt: if the High Court were right, a number of witnesses would be made to depose to the same facts at least twice, to no useful end.

To locate the Magistrate's true role, the Court turned to higher authority. The Constitution Bench in Hardeep Singh v. State of Punjab had held that at the pre-trial stage the Magistrate performs acts "in the nature of administrative work rather than judicial" — ensuring compliance with Sections 207 and 208 and committing a Sessions-triable matter — and is forbidden by Section 319 from applying his mind to the merits at the Section 207–209 stage. And in Supdt. and Remembrancer of Legal Affairs v. Ashutosh Ghosh, the only requirement of the Magistrate was said to be to see whether the offence is exclusively triable by the Court of Session, in doing which "no evidence need be taken."

The Court then traced the legislative history through two three-judge decisions — State of Orissa v. Debendra Nath Padhi and Rattiram v. State of M.P. — which found that the legislature consciously did away with the taking of evidence at the pre-committal stage. As Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer had put it in Sanjay Gandhi v. Union of India, it would frustrate the legislative purpose for the Magistrate to go into the merits; the power is a "narrow inspection hole." Padhi explained that the old Sections 207 and 207-A, with their lengthy committal inquiry, were omitted and a new Section 209 enacted on the recommendation of the 41st Law Commission Report, which had found committal proceedings "largely a waste of time and effort." Rattiram underscored the "sea of difference" between committal under the old Code and the new, and that the Magistrate's role is now "absolutely constricted."

On that reasoning, the Court held that the High Court had misread the law and set its judgment aside. Because the appellant's real grievance had been that the Court of Session erred in not framing charges against the other two accused, the Supreme Court directed the High Court to hear afresh, and decide independently, both the appellant's petition and respondent no. 2's petition — as expeditiously as possible and not later than nine months, with parties to appear before the High Court on 16 July 2026. The appeal was allowed.

Why it matters

For complaint cases involving offences exclusively triable by the Court of Session, the decision confirms a clean division of labour. The Magistrate does not conduct a mini-trial before committing; the completeness of the prosecution's material and the sufficiency of the evidence are for the Court of Session at the stage of framing charge under Section 228 or discharge under Section 227. Pre-charge evidence-recording under Section 244 belongs to warrant cases the Magistrate tries himself, not to cases he merely commits upward.

Related on Valkya

• Union of India v. Prafulla Kumar Samal: the standard for discharge and framing of charge
• Swarnalata Jena v. State of Odisha: the Magistrate's role under Section 175(3) BNSS
• Shaurya Singh v. CBI: default bail under the BNSS
• The BNSS one year on: a practitioner's read

Sources

• Supreme Court of India, Neeraj Gupta v. Pardeep Kumar Bansal & Ors., 2026 INSC 660 (Judgment dated 1 July 2026)
• Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, Sections 200, 209 and 244