New Delhi: In a significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said threatening any person to give false evidence is a cognizable offense and offered a clarification on the ambiguity of a provision inserted in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2006 that led different high courts to give contradictory interpretations.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Alok Aradhe said from the statutory scheme, it is clear that section 195A of the IPC was conceptualised as an offence distinct and different from those under sections 193 (punishment for false evidence), 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of capital offence), 195 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of offence punishable with life imprisonment for life or seven years or more jail term) and 196 (perjury).
It said offenses under sections 193 to 196 of the IPC require a complaint to be made only by those named in section 195(1)(b)(i) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and these are all non-cognizable offenses.
