No benefit of Mohan Lal judgment to prior cases

All pending criminal prosecutions, trials and appeals prior to the law laid down in the judgment in Mohan Lal vs. State of Punjab (acquittal if investigator-informant the same person) will continue to be governed by individual facts of the case, the Supreme Court has observed.

An appeal (Varinder Kumar versus state of Himachal Pradesh) against a conviction in an NDPS case was being considered by a bench comprising CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justice Navin Sinha and Justice KM Joseph.

The Mohan Lal judgment was strongly relied upon to contend that the prosecution had been vitiated as the informant and the investigatring officer were one and the same person.

About the Mohan Lal case, the bench said, "The facts of that case did not show any need to visualise what all exceptions must be carved out and provided for. The attention of the Court was also not invited to the need for considering the carving out of exceptions."

Stating that the judgment in the Mohan Lal case could not be allowed to become a spring board by an accused to catapult to acquittal irrespective of all other considerations pursuant to an investigation, Justice Navin Sinha said, "Criminal jurisprudence mandates balancing the rights of the accused and the prosecution. If the facts in the Mohan Lal (supra) were telling with regard to the prosecution, the facts in the present case are equally telling with regard to the accused. There is a history of previous convictions of the appellant also. We cannot be oblivious of the fact that while the law stood nebulous, charge sheets have been submitted, trials in progress or concluded, and appeals pending all of which will necessarily be impacted."

“We therefore hold that all pending criminal prosecutions, trials and appeals prior to the law laid down in Mohan Lal (supra) shall continue to be governed by the individual facts of the case”, the bench said.