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Q. What are the preliminary pleas that can be used to bar a trial? "Every offence shall ordinarily be inquired and tried by court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction it was committed." Explain the statement and state its exceptions, if any. General Concept When an accused appears or is brought before the the court for a trial, trial, he m ay rais rais e certain pleas or objections to avoid the trial. trial. For examp examp le, he m ay plead that the court does not have jurisdiction in the case or that the the offence happened too long ago, or  that he has al ready been tried and acquitted for the the s am e offence. offence. Such pleas are m eant to stop the trial from from proceeding further furt her and dis charge the accused. However, However, such pleas may also be rais ed by prosecution when the court does no t have have competency or jurisdiction in the case. Such pleas are s uppos ed to be brought forth forth at the the beginning o f a trial trial or as soon as charges are framed. However, However, there there is no explicit direction in Cr P C regarding the timing for such pleas . The follow are the pleas that can be raised 1. Court without Jurisdiction - Jurisdiction of criminal court courts s is of two kinds. One that determines determines the competency of the court to try a specific offence and the other that determines whether the offence happened in the territory of the court, which is als o known as territorial territorial jurisdiction. Competency of the Court to try the offence -  Section 26 read with column 6 of the first schedule determi nes w hich court can try a given offence. For example, offences against public tranquility can be tried by any magistrate while the offence of  counterfeiting counterf eiting a go vernment s tamp can be tried only by a Court of Sessio n. Similarly, only the prescribed court or m agis trat trate e has the power for all the offences offences defined in IPC and other laws. Thus, any party to the proceeding can raise the plea that the court is not competent to try the concerned offence. Section 461 provides that it any magistrate, who is not empowered to try an offence, tries the offender for that offence, the proceedings shal l be void. void.  Als  A ls o, an executive executive m agis trate has no pow er to try try for any offence. Further, as per Section 479, no m agistrate or judge can try any case Further, case in which h e is a party or in which he is interested. If If a trial is ini tiat tiated ed in violation violation of this rule, a plea can be rais ed in this regard. Territorial Jurisdiction - This juris diction is determi ned according to Section Section 177 to 188 of CrPC. These These rules have been enacted mainly for the purpose of convenience of the court, the investigating agency, the accused, and the victim. The general gene ral concept concep t is that only onl y the court in whose who se territory the offence or any part of offence offence has happ happened, ened, can try that that offence. In sim ple terms, an offence offence comm itt itted ed in Mum Mum bai cannot be tried in a court in Delhi. However, mos t case case are not as s imp le as that that.. For examp examp le, A hurts B by a knife in Dewas and D dies because of the wound in Indore. In this case, both the courts in Dew as and Indore have have juris diction. However, However, if the the victim victim B li ves in Bhopal an d if FIR FIR of his death is filed in Bhopal, can A be tried in Bhopal? If not, not, and if A is tried in Bhopal, A can raise a pleas to bar the trial trial in Bhopal.  Any viola  Any iolation tion of the the rules of territorial juris diction does doe s not ips o factor vitiate the trial trial unl es ess s it has in fact res res ulted in failure failu re of   jus tice. How Howev ever, er, if a plea of territorial juris diction is rais ed in the begin ning of the trial, then then s uch objection m us t be sus tained and the trial mus t be stopped. It cannot gain legitimacy under Section 462 in 462  in that case. 2. Time barred proceedings - Earlier, any offence committed could have been taken cognizance of after any number of  years. This caus ed grave grave injus tice to to the accused as im portant witness es becam e unavailable, or important evidence evidence was destroyed destroy ed by tim tim e. For these these reasons , CrPC has n ow incorporated som e general rules for taking taking cognizance cognizance of the crimes www.hanumant.com/Cr PC- U ni t9- Pr eli mi nar yPl eas.html

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within a s pecific period of their happening. In general, the principle that offences punis hable with only fine or with im prisonm ent up to 3 yrs s hould be tried within a limi ted tim e. The provisi ons regarding s uch limitations are contains in Section 467 to 473 and an accused can take advantage of the appropriate section to raise the plea that the case agains t him is barred by the prescribed period of lim itation. Section 468 contains the bas ic rule which provides that no court shall take cognizance of an offence punishable with fine only or with impris onme nt up to three yrs after the expiry of the period of limi tation. The period of lim itations are 1. 6 m onths, if the offence is punis hable by fine only. 2. 1 yr, if the offence is punis hable wi th impris onm ent of a term not exceeding 1 yr. 3. 3 yrs, if the offence is punis hable with im prisonm ent of a term not exceeding 3 yr. These provisions are subject to any other provision which might have been created explicitly for any particular offence. Trial of offences of serious nature, i.e. offences which entail punis hm ent of imprison ment of mo re than 3 yrs, or death, as of  yet, are not barred by any time lim itation. 3. Plea of autrefois acquit and autrefois convict - This m eans that if the offender has al ready been tried for the exact sam e offence before and he has been either acquitted or convict in that trial, he cannot be tried again on that offence. Art 20(2) of  the constitution recognizes this principle as a fundamental right. It says that no person shal l be pros ecuted and punishe d for  the sam e offence more than once. While the article gives this right only upon previous conviction, section 300 fully incorporates this principle. 4. Disabilities of the accused - Under the broad interpretation of Article 21 by Supreme Court, an accused has a fundamental right to be represe nted by a legal practitioner in his trial. If he is indigent, it is the res ponsi bility of the state to provide a lawyer for him . Section 304 als o requires the court to assi gn a pleader for the accused in certain situations. If this is not done, a plea can be raise d in this regard. If the trial still proceeds , despite the objects, the trial is dee med to be vitiated. Further, when the accused is of unsound m ind and cons equently incapable of m aking his defence, the code requires the court to pos tpone the trial until the accused has ceased to be s o. The accused can rais e this plea for objecting the trial. 5. Principle of iss ue estoppel 6. Application of res judicata -

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