The Allahabad High Court allowed an application for quashing of summoning order dated 16.01.2023 as well as the entire proceeding of the Criminal Case arising out of Case under Sections 376, 313 I.P.C.

The court observed that the conduct of the judicial officers concerned in passing orders on printed proforma by filling up the blanks without application of judicial mind is objectionable.

Brief Facts:

On 05.08.2022, the opposite party No. 2 lodged a first information report against the applicant for an incident alleged to have taken place on the same day which was registered as Case Crime No. 0310 of 2022, under Sections 376, 313 I.P.C.

The F.I.R. dated 05.08.2022 was lodged by the complainant alleging therein that she is a widow, her husband had died 12 years ago. After the death of her husband, the accused-applicant, who was posted as Lekhpal at Tehsil Sandila at that time, developed relations with her on the pretext of a false promise of marriage and several times made physical relations with her; whenever the complainant told him to marry with her, he always refused to marry with her. The applicant also got aborted her pregnancy forcefully and threatened her with dire consequences.

Contentions of the Applicant:

The Learned Counsel for the applicant argued that the entire prosecution story is false. No such incident took place and the applicant has been falsely implicated in the present case. The Counsel drew the attention of the Court to the charge sheet against the applicant under Sections 376, 313 I.P.C., whereupon, cognizance was taken by the learned Civil Judge without assigning any reason and summoned the applicant for facing trial.

Further, the Counsel submitted that the court below while summoning the applicant materially erred and did not follow the dictum of law as propounded by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in various cases that summoning in a criminal case is a serious matter and the court below without dwelling into the material and visualizing the case on the touchstone of probability should not summon accused person to face a criminal trial.

Contentions of the Respondent:

The Learned Counsel for the Respondent submitted that considering the material evidence and allegations against the applicant on record, as of date, as per the prosecution’s case, the cognizable offence against the applicant is made out; therefore, the present application is liable to be dismissed. However, he did not deny that the learned Civil Judge took cognizance of the printed proforma without assigning any reason.

Observations of the Court:

The Court observed that a Court can take cognizance of an offence only when the condition requisite for initiation of proceedings before it as set out in Chapter XIV of the Code are fulfilled. The cognizance of an offence on a complaint is taken for the purpose of issuing a process to the accused. Since it is a process of taking judicial notice of certain facts which constitute an offence, there has to be an application of mind as to whether the material collected by the Investigating Officer results in sufficient grounds to proceed further and would constitute a violation of the law so as to call a person to appear before the criminal court to face trial.

Further, the Court said that the conduct of the judicial officers concerned in passing orders on printed proforma by filling up the blanks without application of judicial mind is objectionable and deserves to be deprecated. The summoning of an accused in a criminal case is a serious matter and the order must reflect that Magistrate had applied his mind to the facts as well as the law applicable thereto, whereas the impugned summoning order was passed in a mechanical manner without the application of judicial mind.

The decision of the Court:

The Allahabad High Court, allowing the application, held that the cognizance/summoning order passed in the case in hand cannot be legally sustained, as the learned Civil Judge failed to exercise the jurisdiction vested in him resulting in miscarriage of justice.

Case Title: Satya Pal v State Of U.P & Anr.

Coram: Hon’ble Justice Shamim Ahmed

Case no.: APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 2083 of 2023

Advocate for the Applicant: Mr. Rishad Murtaza

Advocate for the Respondent: G. A.

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