Magistrate Must Show Disagreement With Police's Negative Final Report While Taking Cognizance Of Offence On A Protest Plea: Rajasthan HC
While setting aside a decision of the trial court taking cognizance of offences including rioting in a protest plea, the Jodhpur bench of the Rajasthan High Court reiterated that it was settled law that while taking cognizance of offence on a protest petition the Magistrate should demonstrate his "disagreement with the police report".Justice Farjand Ali held that a definite opinion was...
While setting aside a decision of the trial court taking cognizance of offences including rioting in a protest plea, the Jodhpur bench of the Rajasthan High Court reiterated that it was settled law that while taking cognizance of offence on a protest petition the Magistrate should demonstrate his "disagreement with the police report".
Justice Farjand Ali held that a definite opinion was required to be made or at least grounds of final report had to be considered by the magistrate before proceeding further.
Pursuant to a complaint being filed against the petitioners, the matter was investigated and a detailed negative final report was submitted by the police opining that false case was lodged against the petitioners on the "behest of the complainants". As per the report, the assault was made from the side of the complainants on the petitioners in which one person was also murdered. In this relation, a charge sheet was also filed against the complainants for being the aggressors.
A protest petition was filed by the complainants against the negative final report, and as argued by the petitioners, without considering the legal and factual aspects, the magistrate took cognizance of the case against the petitioners. The alleged offences on which cognizance was taken includes IPC Sections 147(Punishment for rioting), 341(Punishment for wrongful restraint), 323(Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 325 (Punishment for voluntarily causing grievous hurt) read with Section 149 (Every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object).
After hearing the contentions, the Court held that:
“The complainant made a protest petition in which the learned Magistrate initiated an inquiry and then passed the order impugned dated 02.06.2010. The learned Sessions Judge perhaps did not consider the legal and factual aspects of the matter and thus he failed to exercise his revisional jurisdiction as it is observed by me.It is neigh well settled principal of law that whenever a Magistrate takes cognizance of the offence on a protest petition, he is required to show his disagreement with the police report. A definite opinion has to be made or at least the grounds of final report should be considered before proceeding further in the matter. Evidently, the above task has not been undertaken.”
Furthermore, the Court also highlighted that the complainants were prosecuted for the offence of making assault, causing serious injuries, and the murder of a person, and one of the complainants was also convicted. The Court stated that in that case, it was noted by the trial judge that the defence of the complainants was elaborately dealt and it was found that the defence was not established, which was related to the subject matter of the present matter.
In this light, the Court set aside the order of the trial court and exonerated the petitioners from the charges.
Case Title: Nopa Ram & Ors. v State of Rajasthan & Anr.
Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Raj) 4
For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Nishant Bora
For Respondent(s) : Mr. Vikram Singh Rajpurohit, Dy.G.A.
Mr. Ravindra Singh, AGA
Mr. Hanuta Ram present in person