Irregular Proceedings-Section 460 to 466

Suppose a trial runs for two years, the accused is convicted, and on appeal his lawyer points out that the charge was worded slightly wrongly. Should two years of evidence be thrown away and the trial started again? Now suppose instead that a Magistrate who had no power to try anyone decided a full criminal case. Should that stand? The law treats the two very differently, and the irregular proceedings chapter is the rulebook for telling them apart.

In two minutes

Procedural mistakes fall into two groups: a few serious want-of-power acts make the proceedings void (s.507), while most errors, including defects in the charge, wrong venue or a Magistrate's good-faith excess in listed minor matters, do not disturb a finding or sentence unless a failure of justice has in fact occurred (ss.506, 508, 510, 511).

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Criminal Procedure Code 1973, Juvenile Justice Act 2015 and POCSO Act 2012 on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.