Since there was 1 judgment from a 3-judge bench of Supreme Court which said Preliminary Inquiry is mandatory u/s 340 CrPC, the 2-judge bench in this case, referred this point to a Larger bench.
From Para 14,
State of Punjab Vs Jasbir Singh on 26 Feb 202014. In any event, given that the decision of the three-Judge Bench in Sharad Pawar (supra) did not assign any reason as to why it was departing from the opinion expressed by a Coordinate Bench in Pritish (supra) regarding the necessity of a preliminary inquiry under Section 340 of the CrPC, as also the observations made by a Constitution Bench of this Court in Iqbal Singh Marwah (supra), we find it necessary that the present matter be placed before a larger Bench for its consideration, particularly to answer the following questions:
(i) Whether Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 mandates a preliminary inquiry and an opportunity of hearing to the would-be accused before a complaint is made under Section 195 of the Code by a Court?
(ii) What is the scope and ambit of such preliminary inquiry?
15. Accordingly, we direct the Registry to place the papers before the Hon’ble Chief Justice for appropriate orders.
Citations :
Other Sources :
Index of Perjury case laws is here.