Madhya Pradesh High Court
Santosh vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh on 9 January, 2025
NEUTRAL CITATION NO. 2025:MPHC-IND:700
1 CRA-14986-2023
IN THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH
AT INDORE
BEFORE
HON'BLE SHRI JUSTICE BINOD KUMAR DWIVEDI
ON THE 9 th OF JANUARY, 2025
CRIMINAL APPEAL No. 14986 of 2023
SANTOSH
Versus
THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH AND OTHERS
Appearance:
Shri Manish Yadav - Advocate for the appellant.
Shri Anand Bhatt - Govt. Advocate for the respondent / State.
ORDER
This appeal under Section 14(1) of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled
Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 has been preferred against the
impugned order dated 09/01/2023 passed in SCATR Case No.188/2022 by
Special Judge, SC/ST Act, Shajapur (M.P.), whereby charges under Section
306 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereinafter for short referred as, 'IPC')
along with some other charges have been framed against the appellant.
2. As per prosecution story, deceased Banesingh committed suicide by
consuming Salphas due to harassment meted out to him by the appellant on
the ground of return of money lent out to the deceased.
3. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that in suicide note and
even in the statement of deceased Banesingh dated 02/06/2022, he has not
mentioned anything against the appellant about the harassment or abetment
to commit suicide and therefore, no evidence is available to frame charge
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against the appellant under Section 306 of IPC. Impugned order passed by
the learned trial Court is illegal, therefore, by allowing the appeal, the order
as far as it relates to offence under Section 306 of IPC may be set aside and
the appellant may be discharge from the aforesaid offence.
4. On the other hand, learned counsel for the State has opposed the
prayer on the ground that sufficient material is available on record to frame
the charge under Section 306 of IPC against the appellant, hence, prays for
dismissal of the appeal.
5. Even after service of notice, no one appeared on behalf of the
respondent No.2.
6. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.
7. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Ghulam Hassan Beigh
Versus Mohammad Maqbool Magrey & Ors. [2022 LiveLaw (SC) 631] in
para 21 has held as under:-
"21. This Court in the case of Union of India v. Prafulla Kumar
Samal and another, (1979) 3 SCC 4, considered the scope of
enquiry a judge is required to make while considering the question
of framing of charges. After an exhaustive survey of the case law
on the point, this Court, in paragraph 10 of the judgment, laid
down the following principles:-
"(1) That the Judge while considering the question of
framing the charges under section 227 of the Code has
undoubtedly power to sift and weigh the evidence for limited
purpose of finding out whether or not prima face case against
the accused has been made out.
(2) Where the material placed before the court disclose grave
suspicion against the accused which has not been properly
explained the court will be fully justified in framing a charge
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and proceeding with the trial.
(3) The test to determine a prima facie case would naturally
depend upon the facts of each case and it is difficult to lay
down a rule of universal application. By and large however if
two views are equally and the Judge is satisfied that the
evidence produced before him while giving rise to some
suspicion but not grave suspicion against the accused, he will
be fully within his right to discharge the accused.
(4) That in exercising his jurisdiction under section 227 of
the Code the Judge which under the present Code is a senior
and experienced Judge cannot act merely as a Post office or a
mouth-piece of the prosecution, but has to consider the broad
probabilities of the case, the total effect of the evidence and
the documents produced before the Court, any basic
infirmities appearing in the case and so on. This however
does not mean that the Judge should make a roving enquiry
into the pros and cons of the matter and weigh the evidence
as if he was conducting a trial."
8. In the case of State of Gujarat Vs. Dilipsinh Kishorsinh Rao
[Criminal Appeal No.2504 Or 2023] , the Apex Court in para 8 has opined as
under:-
"7. It is trite law that application of judicial mind being necessary
to determine whether a case has been made out by the prosecution
for proceeding with trial and it would not be necessary to dwell
into the pros and cons of the matter by examining the defence of
the accused when an application for discharge is filed. At that
stage, the trial judge has to merely examine the evidence placed by
the prosecution in order to determine whether or not the grounds
are sufficient to proceed against the accused on basis of charge
sheet material. The nature of the evidence recorded or collected by
the investigating agency or the documents produced in which
prima facie it reveals that there are suspicious circumstances
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against the accused, so as to frame a charge would suffice and
such material would be taken into account for the purposes of
framing the charge. If there is no sufficient ground for proceeding
against the accused necessarily, the accused would be discharged,
but if the court is of the opinion, after such consideration of the
material there are grounds for presuming that accused has
committed the offence which is triable, then necessarily charge has
to be framed."
9. In the light of the aforesaid legal position propounded by the Apex
Court, it is mandatory that for offence under Section 306 of IPC positive act
leading to abetment of suicide must be present. In absence of it even mere
some act of harassment will not attract the provision of Section 306 of IPC.
From perusal of the record it is evident that deceased Banesingh has not
stated anything against the appellant. Even otherwise, he has mentioned that
he is consuming poison on his volition and no one is responsible for it.
10. In the statement recorded under Section 161 of Cr.P.C. also, he has
not levelled allegation against anyone. From perusal of the aforesaid
statement it is manifest that he has consumed poison being troubled with his
own ailment. After recording the statement of deceased, statement of some
other witnesses Santosh Singh S/o Banesingh, Seemabai W/o Banesingh,
Basantibai W/o Late Ratanlal and Rajendra Singh S/o Late Ratanlal have
been recorded, wherein they have stated that the deceased Banesingh was
beaten by the appellant by kick and fists and being subdue to the harassment
he has consumed poison and died on 02/06/2022.
11. From perusal of the Naksha Panchayatnama of Laash, it is evident
that no injury has been found on the body of the deceased. Even in
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postmortem report no external injury has been found, which belies the
statement of other witnesses mentioned hereinabove, therefore, in view of
the above, this Court is of the view that nothing is on record to even presume
that the offence of abetment to commit suicide has been committed by the
appellant.
12. In light of the judgment mentioned hereinabove and in the facts
and circumstances of the case, this Court is of the view that learned trial
Court has committed error in framing charge under Section 306 of IPC
against the appellant, therefore, the order dated 09/01/2023 is set aside to the
extent of framing of charge under Section 306 of IPC is concerned. Trial
Court is free to proceed ahead against the appellant for the remaining
charges.
13. With the aforesaid, criminal appeal stands partly allowed to extent
indicated hereinabove.
Certified copy as per rules.
(BINOD KUMAR DWIVEDI)
JUDGE
Tej
