‘Discharge’ is a Valuable Right provided to the Accused: Supreme Court

2. This appeal emanates from the judgment dated 28.11.2018 criminal revision against the order dated 13.03.2014 of the Chief Judicial Magistrate Sant Kabir Nagar refusing to the present appeal. A complaint was lodged with the claimed to be a newspaper correspondent working for ‘The ‘Kalpana Indane Service’. He had also applied for certain conduct investigation on alleged black marketing of gas cylinders by the aforesaid agency. The appellant herein is a made by Respondent No.2 started calling him names and threatened to kill Respondent No.2. It is alleged that the 2) Cr.P.C. for conducting investigation in the aforesaid allegations. The Court accordingly directed investigation and 5. It may be noted that during the course of investigation statement of complainant was recorded by the police which enquire about the latest irregularities in the said gas agency. On mobile itself Sanjay Rai started to give filthy abuses to the applicant and threatened to kill him. At the same he also told that your right to information and intellectual concerns shall be kept back in your hands. I will shotsuch number of bullets that even your face could not be recognized. Mohd. Sahrif Kahn and Umesh Kumar Bhatt had also heard the threatening In any case on 21.07.2012 a charge sheet came to be filed 7. The CJM took cognizance of the matter on 08.11.2012 However well before for framing of the charges the appellant telephonic threats does not constitute an offence under investigation was not fair and was unilateral in its approach the truth and had instead relied on the statement of the complainant and other planted witnesses to fasten a case appellant’s plea and rejected his discharge application From perusal of record it is obvious that no affidavit or any documentary evidence has The fact that which word has been used as abuses and threatening by the applicant is a In view of the aforesaid facts and the application dated Kumar Rai U s­239 Cr.P.C. does not appear to 8. The appellant aggrieved by the aforesaid order approached the High Court through a Criminal Revision Petition seeking reversal of CJM’s order. The High Court relying on the Pvt. Ltd. v. Central Bureau of Investigation1 observed that interference in the order framing charges or refusing to 9. Dissatisfied with the aforesaid impugned order the appellant­ accused has approached this Court through Special Leave 10. Learned Counsel for the appellant urged that prima facie the and no attempt was made to record their statements under closed mind and casually overlooked the credentials of the under Sections 323 504 and 506 of IPC. A letter from the Resident Editor of ‘The Pioneer’ was also produced showing 11. On the other hand learned State Counsel urged that the 27 SCC 515 37 SCC 82 12. At the outset we may note that the High Court has dismissed the Criminal Revision on the ground of lack of jurisdiction the issue in detail to find out whether the continuation of charge is not purely an interlocutory order nor a final order. Jurisdiction of the High Court is not barred irrespective of the label of a petition be it exercised consistent with the legislative policy to ensure expeditious disposal of a trial without the same being in any manner hampered. Thus considered the challenge to an order of charge 13. It appears to us that while limiting the scope of a criminal revision to jurisdictional errors alone the High Court apparently under­appreciated the Judgment in Asian 19884 SCC 551: 1978 SCC Cri) 10] still holds the field. Order framing charge may not be held to be purely an interlocutory order and can in a given situation be interfered with under Section 44 SCC 551 but the power of the High Court to interfere is to be exercised only in a exceptional and proceed with the trial that the issuance of that inherent power of the High Court cannot be exercises for stopping the criminal proceeding as up to the end The answer is obvious that the 15. The correct position of law as laid down in Madhu Limaye supra) thus is that orders framing charges or refusing discharge are neither interlocutory nor final in nature and are apart this Court in the above­cited cases has unequivocally acknowledged that the High Court is imbued with inherent jurisdiction to prevent abuse of process or to secure ends of cases. As a caveat it may be stated that the High Court while justice system. This Court nonetheless does not recommend a complete hands off approach. Albeit there should be interference may be in exceptional cases failing which there is likelihood of serious prejudice to the rights of a citizen. For example when the contents of a complaint or the other innocent person it becomes imperative upon the Court to 16. Further it is well settled that the trial court while considering Court has to sift through the evidence in order to find out has to consider the broad probabilities total effect of evidence the case and so on. 3 SCC 4 case and other related aspects concerning improvement of witness statements it is necessary for the High Court to reconsider the entire matter and decide the revision petition afresh. Accordingly we set aside the impugned order dated All the pending application(s) if any also stands disposed of

Summary: While addressing if the High Court has jurisdiction for a revision petition, the Supreme Court held that orders which frame the charge or the orders which refuse discharge are neither interlocutory nor final. Therefore, they do not face the bar provided under section 397(2) of Cr.P.C. This judgment was passed in the case of Sanjay Kumar Rai vs. State of Uttar Pradesh &amp; Anr. [Cr.A.No. 472/201] by a Double Bench consisting of Hon’ble The Chief Justice and Hon’ble Shri Justice Surya Kant. The appeal in the present case arose when the High Court of Allahabad by a criminal revision against the order of the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) refused to discharge the appellant under Sections 504 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The appellant is a partner at the ‘Kalpana Indane Service gas agency. A complaint was lodged by Respondent no.2 a journalist in a newspaper, where he alleged malpractices against the above-mentioned gas agency. He also applied for information under RTI to conduct an investigation on the malpractices. It is alleged that, while receiving calls from Respondent no.2 the appellant threatened to kill him with multiple bullets on his face and started calling him names.  On an application under section 155(2) Cr.P.C by Respondent no. 2 the CJM ordered for a police investigation. The complaint herein contained 2 witnesses Mohd. Sharif Khan and Umesh Kumar Bhatt. Without taking the version of the appellant the charge sheet was filed. Before the framing of the charges, the appellant filed for discharge of charges under section 239 of Cr.P.C. contending that the following does not constitute an offence under sections 504 and 506 of IPC. It was also contended that the investigation was unilateral and not fair. However, the CJM discharged the same and the High court also sustained the order of CJM. Aggrieved by the same, the appellant approached the SC through Special Leave Petition. The Supreme Court first sought to first address the dismissal of Criminal revision by the High Court on the ground of lack of jurisdiction under section 397 of Cr.P.C. It was observed by the Supreme Court all the cases relied on by the High Court, gave the High Court inherent jurisdiction to prevent abuse of process or secure the ends of justice. It was also observed that in the case of Madhu Limaye vs. State of Maharashtra [(1977) 4 SCC 551], the orders framing charges or refusing charges were not interlocutory or final and thus are not affected by section 397(2) of Cr.P.C. The High Court should invoke the same carefully and judiciously for the effective administration of the criminal justice system. The High court must prevent the abuse of the process of law especially when the material and on record evidence show a brazen attempt to persecute an innocent. It was held that the trial court while addressing a discharge application must sift through the evidence and find if there are sufficient grounds to suspect. The Supreme Court went on to hold the discharge application is a valuable right provided to the accused and the High court committed a jurisdiction error by not addressing the merits of such an application. the Supreme court considered it imperative for the high court to revisit the case by ordering it to decide the revision petition afresh.