CRR No. 2286 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH -- CRR No. 2286 of 2010 Date of decision: 29.09.2010 Naresh Kumar ........ Petitioner Versus State of Punjab .......Respondent(s) Coram: Hon'ble Ms Justice Nirmaljit Kaur -.- Present: Mr. Brijeshwar Singh Bhalla, Advocate for the petitioner Mr. K S Pannu, DAG, Punjab for the respondent State -.- 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2. To be referred to the Reporter or not? 3. Whether the judgement should be reported in the Digest? Nirmaljit Kaur, J. (Oral) A short prayer made in the present petition is for setting aside the order dated 09.08.2010 passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Moga vide which the application for recalling prosecution witness-HC Malkit Singh in order to ask one specific question was dismissed. It is stated in para 2 of the application that the only question which requires to be put up to the complainant is whether he at the relevant time was working as a Reader of Sub Divisional Magistrate Baghapurana or not. CRR No. 2286 of 2010 2 Section 311 of the Code of Criminal Procedure reads as under:- “311. Power to summon material witness, or examine person present. Any court may, at any stage of any inquiry, trial or other proceeding under this Code, summon any person its a witness, or examine any person in attendance, though not summoned as a witness, or recall and re-examine any person already examined; and the court shall summon and examine or recall and re-examine any such person if his evidence appears to it to be essential to the just decision of the case.” It is also not disputed that the witness cannot be recalled for the purpose of filling the lacunae, whereas, in the present case, the recalling of the witness to put forth one question in order to establish truth cannot be viewed as effort to fill in the lacunae. Thus, in the interest of justice and taking into account the fact that only one particular question is required to be asked to the prosecution witness, the said discretion under Section 311 of the Code of Criminal Procedure should be exercised in order to establish the factual position. Reliance is placed on a judgement rendered by the Andhra Pradesh High Court in a case of Samanth v. M/s Vipanchi Chit Fund Ltd, Hyderabad and another reported as 2003 (2) RCR (Criminal) 365, wherein, in some what similar circumstances, witness was allowed to be recalled for. In view of the above, the order dated 09.08.2010 (Annexure P- 1) passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Moga is set aside with a direction that one opportunity be granted to the petitioner to recall the witness so as to put a specific question as mentioned in the present CRR No. 2286 of 2010 3 application (Annexure P-2) subject to payment of Rs.5000/- as costs. Disposes of with the above observations. (Nirmaljit Kaur) Judge September 29, 2010 mohan