Magistrate's Summoning Order Must Reflect Reasons : Supreme Court Reiterates

The Supreme Court today (January 30) quashed a non-speaking summoning order issued by a Judicial Magistrate against a drug manufacturer, reiterating that a summoning order cannot be issued without recording valid reasons. The bench comprising Justice BR Gavai and AG Masih was hearing the appeal filed by drug manufacturers assailing the correctness of the Andhra Pradesh High Court's decision refusing to quash the summoning order issued against them in connection with the case registered under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 (hereinafter, “DC Act”) after a declaration by the government analyst that one of their drug samples namely MOXIGOLD-CV 625 was “Not of Standard Quality”. The appellants argued that a non-speaking summoning order cannot be issued against them and that the summons should reflect a judicial application of mind, along with the recording of compelling reasons for issuing it. Setting aside the High Court's decision, the judgment authored by Justice Gavai held the summoning order issued against the Appellants to be invalid due to the magistrate's failure to record reasons before issuing the summons. The Court emphasized that the issuance of the summon is a serious matter and it should not be issued unless the magistrate applied its mind to find out whether a prima facie case is made out against the accused. Reference was drawn to the case of Pepsi Foods Ltd. and Another v. Special Judicial Magistrate and Others (1998) 5 SCC 749 followed in another case of Lalankumar Singh and Others v. State of Maharashtra (2022), to hold that an order of issuance of process is not an empty formality. The Magistrate is required to apply his mind as to whether sufficient ground for proceeding exists in the case or not. “Summoning of an accused in a criminal case is a serious matter. Criminal law cannot be set into motion as a matter of course. It is not that the complainant has to bring only two witnesses to support his allegations in the complaint to have the criminal law set into motion. The order of the Magistrate summoning the accused must reflect that he has applied his mind to the facts of the case and the law applicable thereto. He has to examine the nature of allegations made in the complaint and the evidence both oral and documentary in support thereof and would that be sufficient for the complainant to succeed in bringing charge home to the accused. It is not that the Magistrate is a silent spectator at the time of recording of preliminary evidence before summoning of the accused. The Magistrate has to carefully scrutinise the evidence brought on record and may even himself put questions to the complainant and his witnesses to elicit answers to find out the truthfulness of the allegations or otherwise and then examine if any offence is prima facie committed by all or any of the accused”, the court held in Pepsi Foods Ltd. Accordingly, the Court allowed the appeal and set aside the summoning order along with the pending criminal case because the prosecution's case was barred by limitation under Section 468 (2) of CrPC as the complaint was filed beyond the stipulated period of three years. Case Title: M/S. JM LABORATORIES AND OTHERS VERSUS STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH AND ANOTHERCitation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 128Click here to read/download the judgmentAppearances: For Petitioner(s) : Mr. H.P.S. Sandhu, Adv. Mr. Harshit Sethi, Adv. Mr. Kartik Yadav, Adv. Ms. Mansi Tripathi, Adv. Mr. Ayush Choudhary, AOR For Respondent(s) : Ms. Prerna Singh, Adv. Mr. Guntur Pramod Kumar, AOR Mr. Gautam Bhatia, Adv. Mr. Dhruv Yadav, Adv.

Magistrate's Summoning Order Must Reflect Reasons : Supreme Court Reiterates

Yash Mittal

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