Malkeet Singh & Another vs State Of Uttarakhand & Another

N.S. Dhanik, J

Accused applicants are facing trial for the offences under Sections 147, 148, 149, 427, 307, 504 and 506 IPC in Sessions Trial No. 94 of 2010, State v. Rarvinder Singh Saini & Others, before the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Kashipur, District Udham Singh Nagar. They have preferred this Criminal Miscellaneous Application, under Section 482 CrPC, for their discharge from the said charges.

It would be pertinent to note here that this is the second round of litigation before this Court. Applicants had earlier filed Criminal Miscellaneous Application No. 155 of 2011, under Section 482 CrPC, for quashing the summoning order and the proceedings of the Sessions Trial No. 94 of 2010. The contentions raised on behalf of the applicants in the said case before this Court were that the applicants were falsely implicated; the investigation was faulty; the A.S.P., Udham Singh Nagar, in his enquiry report dated 22.8.2009, found that the case against the accused applicants was false; Circle Officer vide his enquiry reports dated 8.9.2009 and 26.10.2009, had also reported that the FIR against the applicants was lodged as a counterblast to the FIR lodged by the applicants and final report was submitted in respect of as many as 13 accused persons in the present FIR.

This Court, vide its judgment and order dated 11.2.2011, observed that the said reports pertained to the complaint prior to the completion of investigation; there were two versions of the incident; chargesheets were filed in both the cases against some of the accused in each cases and this Court cannot examine the factual disputes in its jurisdiction under Section 482 CrPC and, without expressing any opinion as to final merits of the cases, dismissed the said 482 application.

Thereafter the applicants moved application under Section 227 CrPC seeking their discharge from the case for the aforesaid offences. The application was dismissed by the Trial Judge who ordered for framing of charges against the accused applicants by his order dated 13.1.2012, which is the subject matter of challenge in the present Criminal Miscellaneous Application under Section 482 CrPC.

During the course of hearing, learned Counsel for the applicants again raised the same contentions which were already made in the earlier C482 application before this Court which cannot be dealt with again in the present C482 application.

Learned Counsel for the applicants contended that the charges against the applicants are without any basis and the prosecution has not collected credible and sufficient evidence and also ignored the reports of the police officers in favour of the applicants.

Learned Sessions Judge rejected the prayer for discharge primarily on the ground that at the present stage of the proceedings, no final opinion can be given in respect of the guilt/innocence of the accused applicants and what is required to look at this stage is whether a prima facie case is made out against the accused persons or not.

In Shoraj Singh Ahlawat v. State of U.P., AIR 2013 SC 52, the Hon. Supreme Court has observed as under:

"11. It is trite that at the stage of framing the charge the Court is required to evaluate the material and documents on record with a view to finding out if the facts emerging therefrom, taken at their face value, disclosed the existence of all the ingredients constituting the alleged offence. At that stage, the court is not expected to go deep into the probative value of the material on record. What needs to be considered to be considered is whether there is a ground for presuming that the offence has been committed and not a ground for convicting the accused has been made out. At that stage, even strong suspicion founded on material which leads the court to form a presumptive opinion as to the existence of a factual ingredients constituting the offence alleged would justify the framing of charge against the accused in respect of the commission of that offence." (Emphasis supplied)"

Similar view has been expressed by the Hon'ble Apex Court in State of Orissa v. Debendra Nath Padhi, (2005) 1 SCC 568, that at the stage of framing charge roving and fishing inquiry is impermissible and a mini trial cannot be conducted at such stage. At the stage of framing of charge the submissions on behalf of the accused have to be confined to the materiel produced by the investigating agency.

The above legal proposition makes it absolutely clear that Court need not take up a roving enquiry or fishing enquiry at the stage of framing of charges and there is no necessity for the Court to evaluate the probative and evidentiary value of the materials and the oral evidence placed by the prosecution and to see whether that would be sufficient to convict the accused.

Having heard learned Counsel for the parties and considering the above legal proposition, I have not been persuaded to take a different view than what has been taken by the trial court. Evidence are required to be appreciated during the trial and at the stage of framing of charge, it is difficult to state that the allegations are no sustainable. Learned trial court, therefore, rightly came to the finding that a prima facie case is made out against the applicants for which charges must be framed for the aforementioned offences.

In fine, I find no force in this petition. Consequently, the present C482 petition is dismissed. Interim order, if any, stands vacated.