Read before you sign, High Court tells Trial Judge

Read before you sign, the Punjab & Haryana HC has told a trial judge. The word of caution came after the HC took cognisance of factual errors in an order passed by an Ambala judge.

“This court would like to point out that the Presiding Officer (trial magistrate) does not seem to be reading the orders passed by him before signing the same,” Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill of the HC asserted.

In his detailed judgment, Justice Gill asserted that a perusal of the order passed by the Ambala Court, annexed with the petition, showed that the date of passing the order was mentioned as “today i.e. Dec 21, 2019”, but the date mentioned at the bottom of the order was Dec 20, 2019.

Similarly, there were discrepancies in some of the dates mentioned in another order. While some of the dates mentioned were of Jan 2020, even 2019 was written incorrectly in the order. Rather, the date mentioned below the order was written incorrectly as Jan 22, 2019, instead of Jan 22, 2020.

Justice Gill added that the trial Magistrate while initiating proceedings vide order passed on Jan 22 ordered securing presence through proclamation for Jan 31. The period was less than 30 days. As such, it was against the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC ).

“A copy of the annexure with this petition be sent to the District & Sessions Judge, Ambala, to report as to whether the aforesaid annexure was a correctly reproduced copy of the order existing in the original file & whether the dates mentioned in the copy are incorrect. If the said dates have been incorrectly mentioned in the original order, the Presiding Officer concerned be asked to be more careful in future & to spare some time for reading the orders before affixing signatures,” Justice Gill added.

Justice Gill was hearing a petition seeking anticipatory bail plea in a cheque bounce case. He dismissed the plea.

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