Trying a Man Who Will Never Appear: Section 356 and the Empty Dock

Article summary

A Special NIA Court in Jammu has issued a non-bailable warrant against Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed, following a supplementary chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency on 6 July 2026 naming him as a key conspirator in the Pahalgam attack, in which 26 people were killed. Because Saeed will not appear before an Indian court, the agency is expected to invoke Section 356 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 — a provision with no equivalent in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 it replaced. Section 356 permits a court to conduct an entire trial against a proclaimed offender who is intentionally evading justice, and to deliver a final judgment and sentence in that person's absence. It applies where the offence is punishable by ten years or more, life imprisonment or death, and is hedged by procedural conditions: two consecutive arrest warrants issued at least thirty days apart, publication of a notice in a local or national newspaper giving the accused thirty days to appear, and a ninety-day wait before the trial may commence. The provision was introduced with fugitives such as Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim in view, alongside economic offenders including Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi.