What this order does NOT decide: it does not hold that Neelam Yadav committed any offence, does not prefer the witness’s cross-examination version over his examination-in-chief as the truth, and does not bar her from being tried. It holds only that the summoning decision must consider the witness’s deposition in its entirety; the trial court may still summon her afresh on a proper consideration of the whole record. It also expresses no opinion on the merits of the murder prosecution against the co-accused.
- Case
- Neelam Yadav v. State of U.P. & Anr.
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Decision
- Bench
- Manoj Misra; Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh
- Judgment by
- Manoj Misra
- Case numbers
- Criminal Appeal No. 4987 of 2026; SLP (Crl) No. 5531 of 2026
- Outcome
- Final order allowing the criminal appeal and setting aside the Allahabad High Court’s order dated 16 February 2026 and the trial court’s summoning order; the question whether Neelam Yadav should be arraigned as an additional accused is left for fresh consideration by the trial court in accordance with law.
What the Court decided
On 16 October 2026, the Supreme Court allowed Neelam Yadav’s appeal and set aside both the trial court’s order summoning her as an additional accused under Section 319 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and the Allahabad High Court’s order dismissing her revision against that summoning. The order was passed by a Bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh.
The holding is procedural, not an acquittal: because neither court below had considered the depositions of the witnesses in their entirety, and both had overlooked what the key witness said in cross-examination, the summoning orders could not stand. The trial court remains free to consider the request for arraigning her afresh, in accordance with law.
The FIR and the chargesheet
The case began with a first information report registered on 25 July 2022 at Police Station Jakhaura, District Lalitpur, under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, arraigning Raman Singh and Neelam Yadav as accused. The allegation recorded in the order is that on 23 July 2022, at about 9.30 p.m., Raman Singh, the brother of the informant, came with the appellant to the informant’s house and demanded his share from the deceased, Bhagwan Singh, the father of the informant and of Raman Singh. When the deceased refused to execute a transfer instrument, the appellant allegedly held the deceased’s hand while Raman Singh stabbed him with a knife, after which both fled. The informant, the order records, was occupied with his father’s cremation and therefore could not report earlier.
After investigation, the chargesheet was laid only against Raman Singh. During the trial, after the statements of prosecution witnesses PW1, PW2 and PW3 had been recorded, an application was moved under Section 319 of the Code to arraign the appellant as an accused, and the trial court summoned her to be tried along with the other accused in Sessions Trial No. 463 of 2022.
From the trial court to the Supreme Court
The appellant challenged the summoning order before the Allahabad High Court in Criminal Revision No. 957 of 2026. By its judgment and order dated 16 February 2026, the High Court dismissed the revision, leaving the summoning order in place. She then appealed to the Supreme Court by special leave, and leave was granted, converting the petition into a criminal appeal.
What each side argued
For the appellant, it was submitted that the trial court had mechanically exercised its Section 319 power without applying its mind to the entire deposition of the witnesses. The submission, as recorded in the order, was that PW1 had stated in cross-examination that he had not personally witnessed anyone attacking his father, that he had not lodged the first information report on the day of the incident but rather on the insistence of the villagers, that he had mentioned the names of Raman Singh and Neelam on being prompted by the villagers, and that he had not seen Raman Singh with Neelam. It was further submitted that PW2 had been declared hostile, and that PW3 had likewise been declared hostile by the prosecution. On that footing, the appellant argued that the power under Section 319, which she submitted is to be exercised sparingly and only where more than a prima facie case is made out, had been exercised without justification.
For the respondents, it was submitted that at the Section 319 stage the court is not required to hold a mini-trial to conclude whether the evidence would ultimately result in conviction. The court, on this submission, merely has to be satisfied whether, on the evidence available on record, the additional accused must be tried along with the accused already facing trial — and since PW1’s statement in chief indicted both the undertrial accused and the appellant, the exercise of power could not be faulted.
The Court’s rule: the whole deposition, not half of it
The Court began from the purpose of Section 319: to ensure that a person involved in a crime does not escape the clutches of law on account of lapses on the part of the investigating agency, with the power to be exercised sparingly and on the basis of evidence led during trial. It then drew the distinction on which the appeal turned. The expression “evidence” in Section 319 is not confined to a statement tested by cross-examination, and the power can very well be exercised on the basis of a witness’s statement-in-chief without awaiting cross-examination.
But, the Court held, where the witness has been cross-examined, the trial court cannot shut its eye to the entire statement, because evidence is not merely the statement in chief — it includes the statement recorded during cross-examination. The trial court is not supposed to weigh a witness’s statement on the anvil of probabilities, or against the weight of other evidence, when deciding whether to try the additional accused along with one already facing trial. However, if the statement made during cross-examination demolishes the edifice of the statement in chief, the trial court cannot overlook the statement in its entirety when the decision to arraign the additional accused rests entirely on that witness’s statement. Even then, after considering the statement in its entirety, it remains within the trial court’s domain to decide whether to arraign the additional accused.
Applying that rule, the Court found that neither the High Court nor the trial court had considered the depositions, particularly PW1’s, in their entirety, and both had overlooked PW1’s cross-examination. The orders were therefore liable to be set aside, with liberty to the trial court to consider the arraignment request afresh.
The final order, and its limits
Accordingly, the appeal was allowed, the impugned orders of the High Court and the trial court were set aside, and all pending applications, including the one seeking impleadment, were disposed of. The trial court is at liberty to reconsider the prayer for arraigning an additional accused in accordance with law.
The limits are stated in the order itself: the Court expressly made it clear that it had not expressed any opinion on the merits of the prosecution case or evidence. Readers should therefore not treat this order as a finding that the appellant is innocent, nor as a finding that PW1’s cross-examination version is true. It is a decision about the process by which a summoning decision must be reached: on the whole deposition, not on the examination-in-chief alone where cross-examination exists and cuts against it.
BANTHRY ANALYSISFor law students
This order is a compact lesson in what counts as “evidence” for Section 319 once cross-examination exists: the whole deposition, chief plus cross, read together. A court may act on examination-in-chief alone before cross-examination happens, but once cross-examination is on record, it cannot be treated as if it did not happen.
Notice what the Court did not do. It did not say cross-examination always defeats summoning, and it did not conduct its own credibility assessment of PW1. It said only that a court cannot act as if the cross-examination did not happen. That is why the remedy is a fresh consideration rather than a final discharge: the trial court, looking at everything, may still conclude that the appellant should face trial. The discipline here is evidentiary completeness, not a tilt toward either side.
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- Why did the Supreme Court hold that the trial court and the High Court had erred, even though Section 319 power can be exercised on a witness’s examination-in-chief alone?
- What part of PW1’s cross-examination, according to the appellant’s submission recorded in the order, undermined the basis for summoning her?
- After this order, is Neelam Yadav finally free from prosecution as an additional accused, or can the trial court still summon her — and on what condition?
