Court Must Be Satisfied Of Prima Facie Case Against Accused While Framing Charges, Reasons Not To Be Recorded: Gujarat High Court
The Gujarat High Court has held that only a prima facie involvement of the accused in an alleged crime is required for framing of charges and the Court need not make an evaluation of evidence or record reasons for the same.Justice Samir Dave referred to Omwati Vs. State (Delhi Administration) 2001 AAR 394 (SC) to reiterate the circumstances in which the Court may discharge the...
The Gujarat High Court has held that only a prima facie involvement of the accused in an alleged crime is required for framing of charges and the Court need not make an evaluation of evidence or record reasons for the same.
Justice Samir Dave referred to Omwati Vs. State (Delhi Administration) 2001 AAR 394 (SC) to reiterate the circumstances in which the Court may discharge the Accused:
"(i) If upon consideration that there is no sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused, he shall discharge the accused for which he is required to record his reasons for so doing. No reasons are required to be recorded when the charges are framed against the accused persons.(ii) Where it is shown that the evidence which the prosecution proposes to adduce to prove the guilt of the accused, even if fully accepted before it is challenged in cross-examination or rebutted by defence evidence cannot show that the accused committed the crime, then and then alone the Court can discharge the accused. The Court is not required to enter into meticulous consideration of evidence and material placed before it at this stage."
The Accused persons herein were booked for offences u/s 7, 12, 13(1)(d) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
The FIR was registered against the Accused in the background of a raid where it was alleged that Accused No. 2 had accepted a bribe of INR 1.5 lakhs on behalf of the Applicant. Prior to framing of charge, the Application had submitted an application for discharge u/s 227 on the ground that there was no evidence against him to frame charges. However, the same was dismissed vide the impugned order.
The Accused/Applicant contested that there was no telephonic conversation between the Complainant and him on the date of raid and the call records established this. Further, the transcript of the audio CD was wrong and incomplete and there were several mistakes in the script. Therefore, the Petitioner had prepared his own 'true and correct' transcript of the audio. The same was not considered by the Special Judge. An additional contention was that it is settled law that without sanction, there cannot be any prosecution against a public servant and if the sanction is granted, then the validity of such sanction can be considered by the Special Judge while considering the discharge application. The Applicant herein had challenged the competence of the legal officer who had granted sanction for legal action against him. The said sanction was violative of Sec 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Justice Dave affirmed the opinion of the trial court that the Prosecution did not have any reason to make false allegations against the Accused. The Bench noted that the Applicant had sought amount of INR 1.5 lacs, and prima facie there was a 'meeting of minds' between the Accused persons. The Bench referred to State of Bihar Vs. Ramesh Singh AIR 1977 SC 2018 to remark:
"But at the initial stage if there is a strong suspicion which leads the Court to think that there is ground for presuming that the accused has committed an offence then it is not open to the Court to say that there is no sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused."
Thus, the High Court concluded that the impugned order did not suffer from any irregularity, illegality or impropriety which merited the High Court's intervention.
Case No.: R/CR.RA/223/2022
Case Title: AJITSINGH JAGAN SINGH YADUVANSHI v/s STATE OF GUJARAT
Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Guj) 317