In Sudhir v. State of M.P. (2001), was the Sessions Court required to transfer a committed counter-case…

In Sudhir v. State of M.P. the Supreme Court read former section 228(1)(a) CrPC (now section 251(1)(a) BNSS) as discretionary, so a Sessions Court need not transfer a committed counter-case to the Chief Judicial Magistrate merely because it has no exclusively Sessions-triable offence. Case and counter-case should be tried by the same Sessions Judge, but separately, with a separate judgment on the evidence in each; pooling the evidence into one common verdict is wrong.