-Mayank Khichar
“Jurisdiction is not given for the sake of the judge, but for that of the litigant.”- Blaise Pascal
This article examines one of the core and contentious issues often involved in criminal trials. Namely, it centres around the focal point that (a) which forum may call ‘the accused’ to answer, and (b) when does jurisdiction truly shift from the Magistrate to the Court of Sessions (“CoS”), in criminal matters? Specifically, it interrogates the erratic nature of judicial interpretation surrounding the interpretation of Section 193 (now 213 BNSS) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (“CrPC”) (now repealed by virtue of S. 531 Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita “BNSS”) and its implications on the powers of a CoS after a case has been ‘committed’ to it. Here, ‘committal’ or ‘commitment of a case’ means when a Magistrate transfers a case to the CoS because they believe the offence can only be tried exclusively by the CoS, with regard to the nature of the offence.
In the aforesaid context, Section 193 states that a CoS cannot “take cognizance of any offence as a Court of original jurisdiction unless the case has been committed to it by a Magistrate” (“S.193”). While the introduction of BNSS has addressed some procedural uncertainties around the committal process, ambiguities persist. This is especially the case when one tries to answer whether a CoS have the authority to take cognizance by mode of summoning ‘additional persons’ as accused, after a case has been committed to it? Please note that throughout this piece, references to ‘taking cognizance’ mean the exercise of the power to summon additional persons as accused.
To address the central question, we engage primarily with two landmark cases, Kishun Singh v. State of Bihar (“Kishun Singh”) [1993 (2) SCC 16] and Ranjit Singh v. State of (Pepsu) Punjab (“Ranjit Singh”) [1959 SCC OnLine SC 92], amongst others. In particular, even though we have some recent court decisions juggling the above issue from 2025, Kishun Singh and Ranjit Singh form the foundations for the same. Accordingly, this piece foregrounds the inquiry into these two cases, primarily, to bring about the divergent judicial interpretations of S. 193 and would try to offer a workaround for the same. Specifically, I contrast two diverging judicial approaches regarding the power of the CoS. In doing so, I examine the tension between the ruling in Kishun Singh, which preferred the CoS’s inherent authority to summon additional accused, against the more restrictive-cum-calibrated approach in Ranjit Singh. Ultimately, I argue in favour of the reasoning in Ranjit Singh, and maintain that the procedural safeguards of the committal process must be strictly observed to prevent ‘jurisdictional’ overreach, since this has the potential of upsetting the balance of the criminal justice ‘structure’ and ‘arrangement’ as a whole.
On balance, for ease of the reader’s reference, the piece engages with the provisions of the CrPC, as the cases have been decided on that ‘law’. However, the corresponding provisions of BNSS have been cited wherever relevant. Also, since the provisions under discussion remain identically worded.
In this piece, wherever the term ‘judicial efficiency’ (“JE”) is invoked, it is intended to mean more than ‘speedy disposal of cases’ [see page 34, 63]. In its thicker conception, partly borrowing from Mamman Khan vs. State of Haryana, I read it to mean
Further, I use the term ‘procedural integrity’ (“PI”) to mean a constitutional value-load of criminal procedure. Specifically, the total of substantive substance that we get after Arts. 20, 21 and 22 of the Constitution are read together and distilled. This, arguably, provides a coherent and conceptually sound framework to protect the personal liberty of those who are unreasonably laboured. Illuminatingly, other facets of PI include accuracy in charging decisions, preservation of pre-trial safeguards (such as due remand, timely production, rule-bound confession recording), and the role of the magistrate as an independent preliminary gatekeeper who prevents overreach before full trial machinery kicks in.
The above understanding sheds light on the uninterrogated assumptions often being made by courts when they decide doctrinal questions. Accordingly, there are right reasons to suspect these arguably core actors of the ‘criminal justice system’ and push for this thicker understanding of ‘JE’ and ‘PI’. This is also because much of the judicial rhetoric around “efficiency” collapses it into questions of time, i.e., merely speedy disposal, but scholarship cautions against reducing efficiency to speed alone (and this piece uses the same wider conception as well).
Prominently, Marc Galanter has argued that the basic architecture of the legal system inherently gamed those who are already socially and economically advantaged (“the repeat players”) using superior legal strategy. This, instructively, makes the law an ineffective tool for radical social redistribution to those who suffer the most or require the legal machinery the most (“the one-shotters”).
Interestingly, Judith Resnik [see also] has shown that courts’ pursuit of efficiency through docket-clearing can (and does) compromise their role as sites of reason-giving and fairness-upholding institutions. Further, he has argued that procedural rules should not merely serve as ‘contract-promoting’ tools for efficiency but must allow the actors of the system (i.e. litigants) to demand ‘accountability’ from the judges.
Therefore, in our immediate context, ‘PI’, apart from being a value in itself, also performs some instrumental functions, such as those of protecting liberty. Here, the committal magistrate ought not to be treated as an avoidable bottleneck, but a first-interface checkpoint designed [see para 2.19, 3.33 and 4.5 onwards] to oversee critical matters, such as custody, bail, and voluntariness of confessions. So, treating efficiency as the elimination of such checkpoints reflects an unexplained assumption, i.e. the only relevant ‘cost’ of not bypassing a Magistrate by usurping their ‘role’ is delay, rather than the erosion of substantive (constitutionally protected) safeguards. Hence, it can be maintained that a more normatively structured account of efficiency integrates ‘PI’ into its very definition. This would help recognise that a system which sacrifices liberty-protecting functions in the name of speed is not efficient at all, but is indeed deficient.
To establish this, we will engage in three interlinked arguments First, in Part I, we will see how the judicial discourse around Section 193 CrPC, prior to the enactment of BNSS, shows the tension between judicial flexibility in upholding the (purported) power of the CoS to take cognizance post-committal and procedural constraints upholding the express provisions of CrPC. Second, in Part II and III, we will analyse the interpretative frameworks and the underlying reasoning(s) used by the court(s) to justify their decision(s) in Kishun Singh and Ranjit Singh. This is done in order to assess the impact of each decision on the scope of powers of the CoS to take cognizance by summoning additional persons as accused. Thirdly, in Part IV, we will establish that the interpretation in Ranjit Singh more closely aligns with the objective of ensuring procedural integrity through clear, sequential safeguards, while the deeming fiction applied in Kishun Singh risks compromising the rights of the accused by stretching the original jurisdiction of the CoS beyond its intended limits.
Ultimately, in conjunction of Part IV and V, it argues that Ranjit Singh’s literal interpretation of Section 193 CrPC (now 213 BNSS) coupled with S. 232 BNSS, represents a balanced approach that respects both judicial efficiency and the procedural integrity of criminal proceedings as discussed above (briefly), which would be discussed in detail elsewhere in this piece.
Now, moving further, we may note that this debate at its core stems from the restrictive language of Section 193, which limits the power of the CoS to take cognizance of cases in a case where it has not been formally committed to it by a Magistrate under Section 209 CrPC (S. 232 BNSS). In this context, Section 209 states that after assessing the case, the Magistrate may commit it to the CoS, if the crime is of a nature triable exclusively by the CoS. Further, Section 190 CrPC (S. 210 BNSS) allows a Magistrate to take cognizance of the offence based on the police report (chargesheet) filed by the police under Section 173 CrPC. However, Section 193, as the piece argues, restricts the jurisdiction of the CoS and requires a formal committal order from the Magistrate before it can proceed with the case.
While Ranjit Singh had palpably restricted the CoS jurisdiction by holding that the power to summon additional accused under Section 319 CrPC was not available post-commitment, this position was clarified and partly overruled by the Constitution Bench in Hardeep Singh v. State of Punjab (2014) (“Hardeep Singh”) [see para 37, 48]. The overruling is to the limited extent where the Court held that the power under Section 319 CrPC (power to proceed against other persons appearing to be guilty of offence) is indeed available to the CoS after committal, since the trial in a sessions case commences only after charges are framed. Thus, Hardeep Singh expanded the scope of Section 319, recognising it as a residual but substantive power to ensure that no guilty person escapes trial merely due to investigative lapses.
The BNSS here, through the (newly included) first proviso of Section 232, has to an extent clarified the requirement of the Magistrate taking cognizance compulsorily before committing it to the CoS and thereby effectively preventing the CoS from exercising powers outside its bounds until a case has been formally committed, but the same needs to be interpreted in conjunction with Ranjit Singh.
In Kishun Singh v. State of Bihar, the Supreme Court interpreted S. 193 to imply that once a case is committed, the CoS assumes original jurisdiction and may summon additional accused based on the evidence, i.e. take cognizance, thereby ‘assuming’ the authority initially held by the Magistrate. In contrast, the Ranjit Singh judgment underscores the foundational role of the Magistrate in identifying the specific persons as ‘accused’ and restricts the CoS from expanding its jurisdiction before the evidence collection stage under Section 230 & Section 231 CrPC.
Hence, it may be maintained that the significance of the committal procedure lies precisely in the liberty-safeguarding functions performed by the committing magistrate before the case even reaches the Court of Session. These include recording statements and confessions, ensuring the production of the accused within twenty-four hours of arrest, and determining whether judicial custody is warranted prior to committal. To dispense with this stage by allowing a Court of Session to proceed without committal is not a mere procedural shortcut but a substantive dilution of these safeguards. The magistrate’s role is a crucial gatekeeping one, designed to secure timely oversight at the nearest possible forum; bypassing it in favour of direct recourse to the Court of Session risks both delay and the erosion of individual protections. It is therefore not simply a matter of procedure for its own sake, but of ensuring that procedural formality sustains substantive justice.
The judgment in Ranjit Singh v. State of Punjab provides a structured approach to understand the scope of Section 193, confining the authority of the CoS to try only the accused named by the Magistrate at the committal stage in the committal order. The Court, in this case, argued that, according to Section 209, the “accused” specifically named in the committal order of the Magistrate are the only ones who can appear before the CoS initially. In doing so, Ranjit Singh effectively upheld the express words of the provision through ‘literal’ interpretation, wherein the role of the Magistrate is to act as a gatekeeper to prevent unwarranted encroachment by the CoS on the powers of the Magistrate.
In this context, to start the trial, Section 226 CrPC mandates that, upon the appearance of the accused before the CoSs, the prosecutor present charges only against those individuals explicitly named in the committal order. Consequently, applying the same provision, the Court in Ranjit Singh concluded that from the committal stage to the evidence collection stage (Section 230 & Section 231), the CoS must restrict itself to only try the original accused persons who have been named by the Magistrate. Only upon collecting sufficient evidence can the Court consider adding new accused persons who appear to be guilty of offence, as outlined in Section 319 of CrPC.
To address situations where the CoS, on prima facie evaluation of evidence and facts of the case, believes that additional individuals should be brought in as accused before the evidence collection stage is reached, the Ranjit Singh judgment suggests a methodical approach. According to the Court, if the CoS finds prima facie evidence suggesting that others may be involved in the crime, it may submit a report to the High Court, which may exercise its revisional and inherent powers under Section 482 CrPC to then direct the Magistrate itself to amend the committal order accordingly and then again commit the ‘case’ to the CoS with these new accused persons as suggested by it. This method preserves the foundational role of the Magistrate in committing the case and safeguards the CoS from arbitrarily ‘assuming’ powers that could conflict with procedural limitations envisaged under Section 193.
While this process maintains procedural integrity, it arguably restricts the CoS by making it reliant on the High Court for swift action in situations where judicial efficiency is crucial. Critics of this restrictive reading argue that it creates a bottleneck, slowing down the process where the need for prompt judicial intervention is clear.
In contrast, Kishun Singh proposes a more expansive view of Section 193, where the CoS fully assumes original jurisdiction once the case has been committed. The Court argued that the phrase “Court of original jurisdiction” in Section 193 implies that the CoS may independently assess the evidence and summon new accused without requiring an amended committal order from the Magistrate.
This approach, while promoting judicial efficiency, creates a “deeming fiction” that the Magistrate has not taken cognizance rather, it is the CoS which takes cognizance for the first time, thereby ‘fictionally’ upholding the settled principle of criminal law that ‘cognizance of a case can only be taken once’ and essentially disregarding the initial cognizance taken by the Magistrate. Arguably, by assuming this fictionalised “first” cognizance, the CoS bypasses critical procedural checks, particularly the role of Magistrate in confirming the foundation of the case and identifying the accused at the preliminary level, which has been expressly engrafted under Section 193 CrPC.
The author is a third-year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) at NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.
