IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Cr.Misc. No.9045 of 2010 Shambhu Sharan Singh, Son of Bachu Singh, Resident of Village Baghour, P.S. Govindpur, District Nawadah. --------- Petitioner Versus The State of Bihar ------- Opp. Party ----------- 3 16.04.2010 Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and counsel for the State. Learned counsel for the petitioner, while assailing the order dated 15.12.2009 refusing the prayer for discharge of the petitioner, would submit that when the trial itself was not permissible in view of the order of cognizance being barred under Section 468 of the Cr.P.C., the court below ought to have looked into this aspect of the matter in order to save the valuable time of the Court. Mr. Nawal Kishore Singh, learned counsel for the petitioner in this regard would point out that the petitioner was the informant of Akbarpur Police Station Case No. 54 of 1990 dated 21.6.1990 in which the final report of the police dated 31.10.1990 was submitted reporting the case to be false with a recommendation for initiating proceeding under Section 182/211 of the Indian Penal Code. On such report though the final form was 2 already submitted in the year 1990 itself, the order taking cognizance for offence under Section 182/211 was passed on 8.3.2006 i.e. almost 15-16 years of the alleged date of occurrence. He would, also submit that the maximum sentence for offence under Section 182/211 of the Indian Penal Code can be that of one year and therefore, the order taking cognizance was automatically barred by the period of limitation imposed under Section 468 of the Cr.P.C. Dr. Maya Nand Jha, learned counsel for the State would submit that this aspect of the matter does not seem to have been considered by the court below in the impugned order. In the opinion of this Court, at the time of seeking discharge, if such a plea going to the root of matter was raised by the petitioner, the same was required to be gone into by the court below because if after continuing such proceeding for years together, the ultimate conclusion would still be that the proceeding was barred by limitation, it would only amount to loss of precious time of 3 the Court. That being so, the impugned order is hereby set aside and the matter is remitted back to the court below to find out as to whether the order taking cognizance itself in the present case was barred by limitation. In the event, the court below would find that the prosecution of the petitioner on account of the order taking cognizance being barred by limitation was not possible, it would pass an order for discharge. With the aforementioned observations and direction, this application is allowed. Rsh (Mihir Kumar Jha, J.)