IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH

285 Decided on: 22.09.2025 Gurpreet Kaur ...Petitioner Versus State of Punjab …Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ANOOP CHITKARA Present: Mr. Arshdeep Singh Brar, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. Jatin Kundu, AAG, Punjab.

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ANOOP CHITKARA, J.

FIR No. Dated Police Station Sections

157 21.07.2018 City Moga, District 406, 420, 120B IPC Moga

1. Challenging the order of proclamation dated 02.12.2019, on being declared as a proclaimed offender, the petitioner has come up before this court under section 528 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, [BNSS].

2. Counsel for the petitioner by making reference to para 2 of the petition submits that FIR has been registered on the statement of complainant. He further submits that petitioner is in Australia since 2015 and she was never served in Australia.

3. The accused could not be served through the ordinary process, including summons, bailable warrants, and even non-bailable warrants. The concerned court finally proceeded against the petitioner under section 82 of CrPC and declared the petitioner a proclaimed offender vide aforesaid order.

4. Counsel refers to the copy of passport that is annexed at Page 26.

5. Counsel for the petitioner submits that now the petitioner wants to come to India and she undertakes to appear before the trial Court as and when this Court directs to do so and on instructions counsel further submits that petitioner is voluntarily agree to donate six wheel chairs to Rural Primary Health Center, Ludhiana.

6. Be that as it may, the primary reason to quash is that the proclamation order was made when the petitioner was not in India despite affixations being made on her Indian address.

7. Another reason to quash the proclamation is the statutory provision of Section 105 CrPC. It shall be relevant to extract Section 105 of CrPC, 1973, which reads as follows:

105. Reciprocal arrangements regarding processes.—

(1) Where a Court in the territories to which this Code extends (hereafter in this section referred to as the said territories) desires that—

(a) a summons to an accused person, or (b) a warrant for the arrest of an accused person, or (c) a summons to any person requiring him to attend and produce a document or other thing, or to produce it, or (d) a search-warrant, issued by it shall be served or executed at any place,—

(i) within the local jurisdiction of a Court in any State or area in India outside the said territories, it may send such summons or warrant in duplicate by post or otherwise, to the presiding officer of that Court to be served or executed; and where any summons referred to in clause (a) or clause (c) has been so served, the provisions of section 68 shall apply in relation to such summons as if the presiding officer of the Court to whom it is sent were a Magistrate in the said territories;

(ii) in any country or place outside India in respect of which arrangements have been made by the Central Government with the Government of such country or place for service or execution of summons or warrant in relation to criminal matters (hereafter in this section referred to as the contracting State), it may send such summons or warrant in duplicate in such form, directed to such Court, Judge or Magistrate, and send to such authority for transmission, as the Central Government may, by notification, specify in this behalf.]

(2) Where a Court in the said territories has received for service or execution—

(a) a summons to an accused person, or (b) a warrant for the arrest of an accused person, or (c) a summons to any person requiring him to attend and produce a document or other thing, or to produce it, or (d) a search-warrant, issued by—

(I) a Court in any State or area in India outside the said territories;

(II) a Court, Judge or Magistrate in a contracting State, it shall cause the same to be served or executed] as if it were a summons or warrant received by it from another Court in the said territories for service o