Alibi is a defence plea, cannot annul summoning order Under section 319 CrPC: Raj HC

Jaipur: The Rajasthan High Court has dismissed a criminal miscellaneous petition challenging a summoning order issued under Section 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), holding that a plea of alibi cannot be examined or adjudicated at the stage of summoning an additional accused. The Court made clear that alibi is a matter of defence which must be established at trial, not a ground for quashing a summoning order.

The judgment was delivered by Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand on 25 March 2026 in S.B. Criminal Miscellaneous Petition No. 3521/2019, titled Vikram Sharma & Sanjay Singh v. State of Rajasthan & Snehlata Choudhary, arising from a Sessions Court order in a 2016 Ajmer murder case.

The case arose from a murder committed in Ajmer in 2016. The complainant, Snehlata Choudhary (Respondent No. 2), alleged that Vikram Sharma (Petitioner No. 1) and Sanjay Singh (Petitioner No. 2) were involved in the crime along with the originally charge-sheeted accused. After the trial began, the Sessions Court exercised its power under Section 319 CrPC and summoned the petitioners as additional accused on the basis of evidence that emerged during trial.

The petitioners challenged the summoning order before the High Court, primarily contending that they were not present at the scene of the offence — relying on a plea of alibi — and that this ought to disentitle the trial court from summoning them.

Justice Anoop Kumar Dhand rejected the argument in clear terms. The Court relied on the Supreme Court’s recent judgment in Harjinder Singh v. State of Punjab [2025 SCC OnLine SC 1029], which reiterated the settled legal position that the power under Section 319 CrPC is to be exercised on the basis of evidence appearing during trial, and that defences available to the accused — including alibi — are not matters to be weighed or adjudicated at the summoning stage.

The Court also referred to the landmark Constitution Bench decision in Hardeep Singh v. State of Punjab [(2014) 3 SCC 92], which laid down the foundational principles governing Section 319 CrPC, and to Sandeep Kumar v. State of Haryana [(2024) 20 SCC 451], further reinforcing this position.

The Court held that alibi — the claim that a person was elsewhere when the offence was committed — is a pure defence plea. Its correctness can only be tested after evidence is led at trial. To examine it at the point of summoning would amount to pre-judging the very defence that an accused is entitled to raise and prove before the trial court. The summoning stage requires only that evidence has appeared during trial which gives rise to the opinion that the person concerned ought to be tried along with the accused already before the court.

The Court also noted that Petitioner No. 1, Vikram Sharma, had died during the pendency of the petition. In view of his death, the petition stood abated insofar as it related to him. The hearing and final order therefore proceeded only in respect of Petitioner No. 2, Sanjay Singh.

While dismissing the petition, the Court issued a specific protective direction in favour of Petitioner No. 2 Sanjay Singh. The Court directed that Sanjay Singh shall not be arrested provided he appears before the Trial Court on or before 24 April 2026 and furnishes the requisite bonds. This direction was issued to enable him to appear and comply with the summoning order without the immediate risk of arrest, giving him a reasonable window to regularise his status before the court.

The matter had been listed before the High Court pursuant to a direction of the Supreme Court in Vijay Kumar v. State of Rajasthan (SLP Crl. 773/2026).

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