Court No. - 71
Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 6050 of 2019 Appellant :- Awadhesh Shukla And 3 Ors.
Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Anr. Counsel for Appellant :- Pawankumar Dubey Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.
Hon'ble Rajiv Gupta,J.
Heard learned counsel for the appellants, learned AGA for the State and perused the record.
This criminal appeal has been filed by the appellants with the prayer to quash the summoning order dated 16.08.2019 as well as entire proceedings of Complaint Case No.84 of 2019 (Nanhelal Vs. Awadhesh Shukla and others), under Sections 323, 504, 506 IPC and Section 3(1)(X) of SC/ST Act, Police Station Khutar, District Shahjahanpur.
As per the allegations made in the complaint, it is alleged that on 16.06.2019 at about 8:30 PM, the appellants forcibly entered in the room of the victim and abused him with the name of his caste with an intention to humiliate and intimidate him in public view and also assaulted him by kicks and fists and had forcibly taken away Rs.38,000/- from his pocket.
Learned counsel for the appellants has submitted that from the perusal of the allegations made in the complaint and the material collected during the course of inquiry, no offence is disclosed against the appellants and the present prosecution has been instituted with a malafide intention for the purposes of harassment and the victim has not suffered any injury. He has pointed out certain documents and statements in support of his contention.
Per contra, learned AGA has submitted that from the perusal of the allegations made in the complaint and the material collected during the course of inquiry, prima facie offence is clearly made out against the appellants and as such, impugned summoning order cannot be quashed.
Moreover, at this stage, only prima facie case is to be seen in the light of the law laid down by the Hon'ble Apex Court in the cases of R.P. Kapur Vs. State of Punjab, AIR 1960 SC 866, State of Haryana Vs. Bhajan Lal, 1992 SCC (Cri.) 426, State of Bihar Vs. P.P. Sharma, 1992 SCC (Cri.) 192 and lastly Zandu Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. Vs. Mohd. Saraful Haq and another, (Para-
10) 2005 SCC (Cri.) 283. The disputed defence of the accused cannot be considered at this stage.
The prayer for quashing the summoning order and entire proceedings is therefore refused.
However, it is directed that if the appellants appear/surrender before the court below and apply for bail, their prayer for bail shall be considered and decided as expeditiously as possible after giving opportunity of hearing to both the parties.
With the aforesaid observations, this criminal appeal is finally disposed of.
Order Date :- 27.9.2019 Nadim