JUDGMENT :

By the Court: Heard the parties.

2. Learned counsel of appellant draws attention of this Court to the order No.8 dated 01.08.2017 and submits that the predecessor Bench of this Court before which the case was listed formulated the following questions of law and directed both the parties to address this Court on the questions of law formulated:-

(1) Whether provision of Section 325 of Cr.P.C. is compoundable after the amendment of Cr.P.C. in the year 2005 from the date of its notification?

(2) Further, admittedly, the appellants have been convicted u/s 307 of Cr.P.C. so, whether the offence under section 307 of IPC is compoundable offence?

(3) Whether this court in view of the subsequent development, compounding of the offences is permissible, although after trial, it is established that the dispute between the parties are civil in nature.

3. So far as the first question of law is concerned, learned counsel for the appellants submits that Section 320 of the Cr.P.C. envisages the composition of offences punishable under the different sections of the Indian Penal Code only and no other acts. Further it is submitted by the learned counsel for the appellants that Section 325 of Cr.P.C. is not at all a penal provision. Hence, the composition of the said provision of Section 325 Cr.P.C. is irrelevant.

I find force in the submission of the learned counsel for the appellants. Hence, the first question of law formulated is irrelevant, the same is answered accordingly.

4. So far as the second question of law is concerned, learned counsel for the appellants relied upon the judgment of Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in the case of Narinder Singh versus State of Punjab reported in (2014) 6 SCC 466 wherein the Hon’ble Supreme Court held as under in paragraph No.18 as under:-

18. “We may comment, at this stage, that insofar as the judgment in Bhandari is concerned, undoubtedly this Court observed that since offence under Section 307 is not compoundable in terms of Section 320(9) CrPC, compounding of the offence was out of question. However, apart from this observation, this aspect is not discussed in detail. Moreover, on reading para 12 of the said judgment, it is clear that one finds that the counsel for the appellant in that case had not contested the conviction of the appellant for the offence under Section 307 IPC, but had mainly pleaded for reduction of sentence by projecting mitigating circumstances.” (Emphasis Supplied)

And submits that as the law is well settled that after conviction of a person for the offence punishable under Section 307 of Indian Penal Code, the said offence having not been finding place in Section 320 of Cr.P.C., the said offence is not compoundable, hence there is no doubt that the offence punishable under section 307 of the IPC is not compoundable. It is also settled principle of law that a non-compoundable offence cannot be compounded at any stage as held by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Manohar Singh v. State of M.P., reported in (2014) 13 SCC 75 wherein the Hon’ble Supreme Court has held as under in paragraph Nos.7 and 8:-

7. “In Narinder Singh v. State of Punjab this Court was dealing with a situation where the accused was charged for the offence punishable under Section 307 IPC, which is a non-compoundable offence. The parties arrived at a compromise at the stage of recording of evidence. A petition was filed under Section 482 of the Code for quashing of the proceedings in view of the compromise. The High Court refused to quash the proceedings. This Court set aside the High Court’s order and quashed the proceedings in view of the compromise. While doing so, this Court laid down certain guidelines. In Guideline (VII), this Court considered a situation where a conviction is recorded by the trial court for the offence punishable under Section 307 IPC and the matter is at appellate stage. This Court observed that in such cases, a mere compromise between the parties would not be a ground to accept th