NEW DELHI, May 18:
The Supreme Court has held that the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973(CrPC) will apply to Jammu and Kashmir only with effect from 31.10.2019, the date when the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act 2019 came into effect following the abrogation of the special status of J&K under Article 370 of the Constitution.
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The Court clarified that the CrPC will not have retrospective application to J&K prior to 31.10.2019 and hence all the proceedings and investigation which were initiated before such date will have to be as per the J&K CrPC 1989.
“A perusal of Table 1 and Table 3 of the Fifth Schedule would clearly show that CrPC, 1973 would govern the field only from the appointed day and consequently the CrPC, 1989 stands repealed. To reiterate, it would come into effect only from the appointed day, and therefore has got no retrospective application. To make this position clear, the CrPC, 1973 shall be pressed into service from 31.10.2019 onwards, and thus certainly not before the appointed day,” a bench comprising Justices MM Sundresh and SVN Bhatti observed.
The Court rejected the argument of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that the procedure under the J&K CrPC need not be followed for the cases initiated. prior to 31.10.2019. In the instant case, the Court was dealing with the issue whether sanction as per the J&K CrPC 1989 was required for taking cognizance of the offence of criminal conspiracy as per the Ranbir Penal Code. (Agencies)
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