How Jurisdiction of Courts in Criminal cases is determined in India

Jurisdiction is the official power of the Court or Judge or Authority to make legal decisions and judgements. Jurisdiction is determined by many factors.

It may be Territorial or may be based on the subject-matter, it may be pecuniary etc. It is all about the power of a Judicial officer, Court etc to try a particular matter, suit, appeal etc.

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Types of Jurisdiction: There are various factors on the basis of which jurisdiction is determined, it may be Territorial, which depends on the place of crime i.e. where the incident is happened. (There are various factors that must be checked in relation to this, sections 177 to 188 of the Cr.P.C. specifically deals with this)


Even, there may be specific provisions related to the jurisdiction for e.g. a murder case is triable only by the court of session only by virtue of the first schedule of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 or the jurisdiction may be appellate, Revisional or original jurisdiction that is actually based on many other factors.

Must Read: What are the various Types of Jurisdiction in Criminal Cases

In this post we are talking about "How Jurisdiction of Courts in Criminal cases is determined in India". Criminal Courts in India are governed under the Code of Criminal Procedure Act, 1973 and the same act contains the overall procedural information that must be followed while deciding criminal matters in India from the registration of FIR to final conviction or acquittal. As the case may be.


Section 26 of the code, gives specific powers to the various criminal courts which is produced as under:

26. Courts by which offences are triable. - Subject to the other provisions of this Code, -

(a) any offence under the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860) may be tried by -

(i) the High Court, or

(ii) the Court of Session, or

(iii) any other Court by which such offence is shown in the First Schedule to be triable;

[Provided that any [offence under section 376, section 376A, section 376B, section 376C, section 376D or section 376E of the Indian Penal Code] (45 of 1860) Shall be tried as far as practicable by a Court presided over by a woman;]

(b) any offence under any other law shall, when any Court is mentioned in this behalf in such law, be tried by such Court and when no Court is so mentioned, may be tried by -

(i) the High Court, or

(ii) any other Court by which such offence is shown in the First Schedule to be triable.

Conferred Jurisdiction

As it can be seen from the bare reading of the section it is clear that various courts are given powers to try the case by virtue of the First Schedule of the Code. The courts are exclusively conferred with the jurisdiction by virtue of the code.

Exception to the above rule

The use of "or" in the section makes it clear that the jurisdiction of the High court and the Court of Sessions can not be limited merely because an offence is triable by any other Court by virtue of the first schedule.

It was also held that a case Triable by a Magistrate can even be tried by Court of Session when, there are counter cases and both are required to be tried by same court irrespective of its nature.

Another point is, Section 26 has two sub clauses, one deals with offences under the IPC and second deals with offences under other laws. Therefore, offences are divided in two groups i.e. offences under the Indian Penal Code and offences under any other act or legislation.

After the enactment of Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 it was specially added that offences committed against women that comes under Section 376, and other sections shall be tried as far as practicable by a Court presided over by a woman.

Explanatory Note.— (1) In regard to offences under the Indian Penal Code, the entries in the second and third columns against a section the number of which is given in the first column are not intended as the definition of, and the punishment prescribed for, the offence in the Indian Penal Code, but merely as indication of the substance of the section.
(2) In this Schedule, (i) the expressions “Magistrate of the first class” and “Any Magistrate” include Metropolitan Magistrates but not Executive Magistrates; (ii) the word “cognizable” stands for “a police officer may arrest without warrant”; and (iii) the word “non-cognizable” stands for “a police officer shall not arrest without warrant”.

If we have a deeper look at the above classification of offences, it can be seen that serious offences like RAPE, Murder, Culpable Homicide etc are Triable by the court of Session and on the other hand, other offences like Hurt, Cheating, Forgery, Cruelty, Defamation etc are triable by Magistrates.