Legal provisions regarding certain persons may be charged jointly under section 223 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
(a) Persons accused of the same offence committed in the course of the same transaction;
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(b) Persons accused of an offence and persons accused of abetment of, or attempt to commit, such offence;
(c) Persons accused of more than one offence of the same kind, within the meaning of Section 219 committed by them jointly within the period of twelve months. Here, the number of offences for which several accused persons could be tried need not be limited to three;
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(d) Persons accused of different offences committed in the course of the same transaction. Here, the offence of conspiracy and the offences committed by each conspirator in pursuance of the conspiracy are ‘offences committed in the course of the same transaction’, and persons accused of such offences can be tried jointly at one trial;
(e) Persons accused of an offence which includes theft, extortion, cheating, or criminal misappropriation, and persons accused of receiving or retaining, or assisting in the disposal or concealment of, property possession of which is alleged to have been transferred by any such offence committed by the first-named persons, or of abetment of, or attempting to commit any such last-named offence;
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(f) Persons accused of offences under Sections 411 and 414 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, or either of those sections in respect of stolen property the possession of which has been transferred by one offence;
(g) Persons accused of any offence under Chapter XII of the Indian Penal Code relating to counterfeit coin, and persons accused of any other offence under the said Chapter relating to the same coin, or of abetment of, or attempting to commit any such offence; and the provisions contained in the former part of this Chapter shall, so far as may be, apply to all such charges.
The provisions of various classes of Section 223 of the Code need not be treated as mutually exclusive and it is permissible to combine the provisions of two or more clauses. The joint trial of several persons partly by applying one clause and partly by applying another clause is authorized. They are capable of being applied cumulatively.
It is not permissible for the Court under Section 223 of the Code to club and consolidate the case on a police challan and the case 0П a complaint where the prosecution versions in the police challan case and the complaint case are materially different, contradictory and mutually exclusive.
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An accused person cannot assert any right to a joint trial with his co-accused. It is the right of the prosecution to decide whom to prosecute.