The Supreme Court reiterated that “In our view, having due regard to the nature and ambit of Section 311 of the CrPC, it was appropriate and proper that the applications filed by the prosecution ought to have been allowed. Section 311 provides that any Court may, at any stage of any inquiry, trial or other proceedings under the CrPC, summon any person as a witness, or examine any person in attendance, though not summoned as a witness, or recall and re-examine any person already examined and the Court shall summon and examine or recall and re-examine any such person “if his evidence appears to it to be essential to the just decision of the case”. The true test, therefore, is whether it appears to the Court that the evidence of such person who is sought to be recalled is essential to the just decision of the case.

In Manju Devi v State of Rajasthan, a two-Judge bench of this Court noted that an application under Section 311 could not be rejected on the sole ground that the case had been pending for an inordinate amount of time (ten years there). Rather, it noted that “the length/duration of a case cannot displace the basic requirement of ensuring the just decision after taking all the necessary and material evidence on record. In other words, the age of a case, by itself, cannot be decisive of the matter when a prayer is made for examination of a material witness”.

The State represented by the Deputy Superintendent of Police Vs. Tr N Seenivisigan, dated 01.03.21.