Court No. - 75
Case :- APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 41704 of 2019 Applicant :- Jitendra Das @ Jitendra Nath Chaturvedi Opposite Party :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Applicant :- Sanjeev Kumar Sharma,Narendra Kumar Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A.
Hon'ble Rajiv Gupta,J.
Heard learned counsel for applicant, learned A.G.A. for the State and perused the record.
By means of this application under Section 482 CrPC, the applicant has challenged the order dated 19.09.2018 passed by learned Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Court No.3, Kanpur Nagar, by which the applicant's application for discharge has been rejected.
Being aggrieved with the said order dated 19.09.2018, the applicant has preferred a revision before the court of Sessions Judge, Kanpur Nagar. The said revision has also been dismissed vide order dated 16.07.2019.
Learned counsel for the applicant has submitted that from the allegations made in the FIR and the material collected during the course of investigation, no offence complained of is made out against the applicant.
Learned counsel for the applicant has next submitted that the learned Magistrate, without considering the entire facts and circumstances of the case and in a most mechanical and casual manner, has rejected the discharge application. Thereafter, revisional court has not considered the submissions made by counsel for the revisionist in right perspective and has dismissed the revision in a most mechanical and casual manner.
Per contra, learned AGA has submitted that from the perusal of the allegations made in the FIR and the material collected during the course of investigation, prima facie offence is clearly made out against the applicant. Both the courts below has passed well reasoned and detailed orders considering each and every aspect of the matter and has come to the right conclusion that the offence is made out against the applicant. The trial court has rightly rejected the discharge application and the revisional court has also passed the impugned order after taking into considering the entire material on record and both orders do not suffer from any illegality or infirmity.
Having considered the rival submissions made by learned counsel for the parties and taking into consideration the entire evidence and material collected during the course of investigation and the reasons assigned in the impugned orders by the courts below, I do not find any illegality or impropriety in the impugned orders.
It is also to be noted that at the stage of discharge the court has to consider the material only with a view to find out if there is a ground for 'presuming' that the accused had committed the offence:-
"It is trite that at the stage of framing of 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, disclose the existence of all the ingredients constituting the alleged offence or offences. For this limited purpose, the court may sift the evidence as it cannot be expected even at the initial stage to accept as gospel truth all that the prosecution states. At this stage, the court has to consider the material only with a view to find out if there is ground for presuming that the accused has committed an offence and not for the purpose of arriving at the conclusion that it is not likely to lead to a conviction."
"Section 227 itself contains enough guidelines as to the scope of enquiry for the purpose of discharging an accused. It provides that the judge shall discharge when he considers that there is no sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused. The ground in the context is not a ground for conviction, but a ground for putting the accused on trial. It is in the trial, the guilt or the innocence of the accused will be determined and not at the time of framing of charge. The court, therefore, need not undertake an elaborate enquiry in sifting and weighing the material. Nor is it necessary to delve deep into various aspects. All that the court has to consider is whether the evidentiary material on record. If generally accepted, would reasonably connect the accused with the crime."
In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances of the case, the prayer for quashing the impugned orders is rejected. This application under Section 482 CrPC is devoid of merit and it is accordingly dismissed.
Order Date :- 26.11.2019 Nadim