A Court in Delhi has held that accused cannot be discharged in a summons case at the stage of Section 251 or 258 CrPC and therefore, it dismissed the revision petition.
ASJ Mr. Kuldeep Narayan has passed the order in the case titled as Ghanshyam Chainani vs The State on 28.09.2019.
A revision petition under Section 397 read with Section 399 of the CrPC was filed by the petitioner for revision of order dated 03.05.2019 passed by Learned Metropolitan Magistrate04 (East) in Complaint Case bearing CT Case No.421/2015(old)52894/2016(new), titled as ‘Raju Kishan Chainani v. Ghanshyam Chainani’ whereby notice under Section 251 Cr.PC qua commission of offences u/s 341/323 IPC was given to the petitioner/accused.
By way of present petition, the petitioner is praying for setting aside the notice given to him under section 251 Cr.P.C. qua commission of offences u/s 341/323 IPC, by the impugned order, which, if allowed, will have the effect of discharge. Both the offences punishable u/s 341/323 IPC are summons cases.
Lf. ASJ firstly quoted the judgment of Delhi High Court wherein certain directions were issued to trial courts for exercising discharge powers in summons cases.
The he observed "The abovementioned judgment passed by Hon'ble Delhi High Court was challenged in Hon'ble Supreme Court in Amit Sibal v. Arvind Kejriwal and Ors., (2018) 12 SCC 165, wherein Hon'ble Supreme Court set aside order of Hon'ble Delhi High Court wherein Hon'ble Delhi High Court had held that the Magistrate shall be empowered to discharge/drop the proceedings at the stage of framing notice under Section 251 of the Code, if no case is made out. Hon'ble Supreme Court accepted the contentions of learned counsel for the appellant that in a complaint case where summoning order has been issued, the order permitting the respondents to raise such contentions at the stage of framing of notice and directing the magistrate to consider the same and pass appropriate order, is contrary to law. Hon'ble Delhi High Court had passed the said order after taking into consideration the judgments namely Bhushan Kumar v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2012) 5 SCC 424; Raujeev Taneja v. NCT of Delhi and Ors. Crl. M.C. 4733/2013, Krishna Kumar Variar v. Share Shoppe (2010) 12 SCC 485; Urrshila Kerkar v. Make My Trip (India) Pvt. Ltd., MANU/DE/4138/2013; S.K. Bhalla v. State, 180 (2011) DLT 219, but Hon'ble Supreme court set aside the said order of Hon'ble Delhi High Court and case was remanded back".
He then held "In view of the judgments passed by Hon'ble Supreme Court in case of Amit Sibal (supra), John Thomas (supra) and Subramanium Sethuraman (supra), it can be said that in summons trial case, at the stage of framing of notice under Section 251 of the Code, Learned Trial Court can not discharge the accused. Further, proceedings cannot be stopped under Section 258 of the Code in a complaint case. If Learned Trial Court can not discharge the accused at the stage of framing notice under Section 251 of the Code and it cannot stop the proceedings under Section 258 of the Code, then it can not be said that order of Learned Trial Court suffers from illegality, infirmity and impropriety as mentioned in Section 397 of the Code".
Read the Order here:
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