Jharkhand High Court

Sumit Chauhan @ Semeet Chauhan @ ... vs The State Of Jharkhand on 7 August, 2023

                                   -1-


          IN THE HIGH COURT OF JHARKHAND AT RANCHI
                  Cr. Appeal (SJ) No.824 of 2022
Sumit Chauhan @ Semeet Chauhan @ Sumeet Chouhan
@ Sumeet Chouhan                             ..... ... Appellant
                           Versus
1.The State of Jharkhand
2.Kusum Kumari                              .... .... Respondents
                        --------

CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SUBHASH CHAND

------

For the Appellant      : Mr. Rahul Kumar, Advocate
For the State          : Mrs. Anuradha Sahay, A.P.P.
                       --------
      th
07/7 August, 2023

1. It appears that vide order dated 23rd June, 2023, the instant

appeal was directed to listed along with Cr. Appeal (S.J.) No.817 of

2022, however, it appears from today's cause list that the said

case is not on Board, therefore, the instant Cr. Appeal (S.J.)

No.824 of 2022 is being disposed of by the order to be followed

by segregating the Cr. Appeal (S.J.) No.817 of 2022.

2. Office is directed to be vigilant in future.

Cr. Appeal (SJ) No.824 of 2022

3. The present criminal appeal has been preferred against the order

dated 3rd September, 2022 passed by the learned Additional

Sessions Judge-I-cum-Special Judge (SC/ST Act), Lohardaga in

M.C.A. No.424 of 2022 arising out of SC/ST Case No.12 of 2021,

whereby and whereunder the petition filed by the appellant for

discharge for the offence under Section 506/34 of the IPC and

Sections 3(i)(r)/3(1)(s)/3(1)(za)(E) of SC/ST (Prevention of

Atrocities) Act has been rejected.

4. Learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that the

allegations made in the F.I.R. are against three accused persons

including the appellant. The I.O. recorded the statement of

witness Binod Thakur in paragraph 14 of the case diary in which

the specific role has been attributed to Chandramauli Jha and

Ashish Gope in regard to using caste related words and hurleding

abuse to the victim and also creating pressure to leave the job.

The witness Agnu Sahu has also stated the name of the present

appellant along with other co-accused Chandramauli Jha and

Ashish Gope. The witness Raj Kishore attributed specific role to

Ashish Gope hurleding abuse and using caste related words to the

victim. It is further stated that so far as the statement of

Devendra Kumar, the then Jail Superintendent is concerned, in

view of paragraph 59 of the case-diary, in first part of his

statement, he stated that occurrence was not found true but in

second part he stated that after intensive inquiry it came into light

that the computer operator Sumit Chouhan, Chandramauli Jha and

Ashish Gope all used to create pressure upon the victim to leave

the job and also hurled abuse using caste related words. It is also

submitted that the main allegations are against co-accused Ashish

Gope and Chandramauli Jha and the discharge application was

rejected by the learned trial court without appreciating the

evidence collected by the I.O. in a proper way. It is further

submitted that vide letter no.1439 dated 6th November, 2019

(Annexure-2 to this appeal) issued by the then Jail Superintendent

had issued a show cause notice to the victim showing her

incompetent for the work. Aggrieved from this very

correspondence, she has lodged the F.I.R. as counter blast of the

same and vide letter dated 27th June, 2020 (Annexure No.4 to this

appeal) the then Jail Superintendent made recommendation to

I.G. Prision, Jharkhand, Ranchi to relieve the victim from the

service.

5. Learned A.P.P. opposed the contentions made by the learned

counsel for the appellant and contended that though the

witnesses who were examined during investigation have also

assigned specific role of creating pressure upon the victim to the

appellant and also using caste related words except two

witnesses, namely, Binod Thakur and Raj Kishore who have not

attributed specific role to the present applicant. It is further

submitted that the then Jail Superintendent also made inquiry in

regard to the matter and he has stated that all the named accused

used to create pressure upon the victim and they also used to

hurled abuse by using caste related words.

6. As per F.I.R. allegations, the victim lodged the F.I.R. with these

allegations that earlier she was in service of NIC, Lohardaga and

thereafter she joined in the year 2018 in District Jail, Lohardaga

on the post of Computer Operator. In October, 2019 the Computer

Operator Chandramauli Jha, Sumit Chouhan and Ajay Gope all had

created pressure upon her to leave the job and they also hurled

abuse to her using caste related words and also stated that Jailor

was also in their influence. She had also given the oral compliant

in this regard to the Jail Superintendent. Since October, 2019 she

was continuously forced to leave the job. Hence, this F.I.R. was

lodged.

7. It is the settled law that the court while framing the charge has to

take into consideration the allegations made in the F.I.R. and also

the evidence collected by the I.O. during investigation. From

perusal of the case-diary, it is found that the victim in her

restatement had corroborated the prosecution story. The witness

Binod Thakur in his statement stated that in his presence

Chandramauli Jha and Ashish Gope had hurled abuse to the victim

using caste related words and also created pressure upon her to

leave the job. This witness further stated that all the named

accused in the F.I.R. had created pressure upon the victim to

leave the job. The witness Agnu Sahu in his statement stated that

the accused Chandramauli Jha, Sumit Chouhan and Ashish Gope

all insulted the victim in indiscriminate way. They also quarreled

with the victim in drunken state of mind and ultimately abuse

using caste related words. She also made complaint of the same

to the then Jail Superintendent. The witness Raj Kishore in his

statement also stated that all the three named accused in the

F.I.R. created pressure upon the victim to leave the job and stated

that in his presence Chandramauli Jha and Ashish Gope both

hurled abuse and scolded her using caste related words. The

statement of Jail Superintendent was also recorded by the I.O.

under Section 161 Cr.P.C. in which he stated that earlier the

allegations made in the F.I.R. appeared to be not true but after

intensive inquiry made by him, it came to know that Computer

Operator Sumit Chouhan, Chndramauli Jha and Ashish Gope all

used to create pressure upon the victim to leave the job and also

hurled abuse using caste related words to the victim. Therefore, in

view of the evidence collected by the I.O. there is sufficient

materials against all the three named accused including the

appellant to frame charge for which the cognizance has been

taken by the learned trial court. So far as the official

correspondence as submitted by the learned counsel for the

appellant which are Annexures 2 to 4 are concerned, all these

correspondence are from the date of lodging the F.I.R. but this

correspondence was made by the then Superintendent of Jail to

the District Jail, Lohardaga and also to the Inspector General of

Police (Jail) but in the F.I.R., the then Jail Superintendent was not

made accused by the victim as such it cannot be accepted that

this F.I.R. was the counter blast of the correspondence made by

the then Jail Superintendent.

8. It has been settled by the Hon'ble Apex Court in several catena of

case law that while framing the charge the court has not to make

the scrutiny of the evidence and the marshalling of the evidence

or the appreciation of the evidence is not permissible.

9. The Hon'ble Apex court in the case of Palwinder Singh vs.

Balwinder Singh & Ors. reported in (2008) 14 SCC 504 at

paragraph 13 has held as under :

"13. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties, we are of the opinion that the High Court committed a serious error in passing the impugned judgment insofar as it entered into the realm of appreciation of evidence at the stage of the framing of the charges itself. The jurisdiction of the learned Sessions Judge while exercising power under Section 227 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is limited. Charges can also be framed on the basis of strong suspicion. Marshalling and appreciation of evidence is not in the domain of the Court at that point of time. This aspect of the matter has been considered by this Court in State of Orissa v. Debendra Nath Padhi wherein it was held as under:

"23. As a result of the aforesaid discussion, in our view, clearly the law is that at the time of framing charge or taking cognizance the accused has no right to produce any material. Satish Mehra case [Satish Mehra v. Delhi Admn. holding that the trial court has powers to consider even materials which the accused may produce at the stage of Section 227 of the Code has not been correctly decided."

10. The Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of CBI v. Mukesh

Pravinchandra Shroff reported in (2009) 16 SCC 429 at

paragraph 2 has held as under :

"2. By the impugned order, the Special Court has discharged the accused Raghunath Lekhraj Wadhwa, Jitendra Ratilal Shroff and Mukesh Pravinchandra Shroff from Special Case No. 4 of 1997. From a bare perusal of the impugned order, it would appear that the Special Court has virtually passed an order of acquittal in the garb of an order of discharge. It is well settled that at the stage of framing of the charge, what is required to be seen is as to whether there are sufficient grounds to proceed against the accused. In our view, the Special Court was not justified in discharging the aforesaid accused persons."

11. The Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Vikram Johar vs State

of Uttar Pradesh reported in AIR 2019 SC 2109 at paragraph

19 has held as under :

"19. It is, thus, clear that while considering the discharge application, the Court is to exercise its judicial mind to determine whether a case for trial has been made out or not. It is true that in such proceedings, the Court is not to hold the mini trial by marshalling the evidence."

12. In view of the aforesaid discussions and the settled legal

proposition of law as laid by the Hon'ble Apex Court, the

impugned order dated 3rd September, 2022 passed by the learned

trial court needs no interference by this Court.