Criminal Petition No. 13316 of 2025 · The High Court · 2025

This Petition coming on for hearing, upon perusing the Memorandum of Grounds of Criminal Petition and upon hearing the arguments of Sri Peruka Bala Harivishnu, Advocate for the Petitioner and the Public Prosecutor on behalf of the Respondents. The Court made the following: ORDER a--.. THE HONOURABLE SMT.JUSTICE TIRUMALA DEVI EADA RIMINAL PETITIO No.13316 2025 ORDER This criminal Petition is filed by the petitioners-accused Nos.5 and 1 seeking to direct the learned special Magistrate of First class cum Excise cum V Additional Metropolitan Magistrate-cum-V Additional Junior civil Judge, Ranga Reddy District at L.B. Nagar to strictly follow the raw reiterated by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Crl.A. No.g03 of ZO22 dated

03.05.2010 in crl.M.P. No.552 of 202s in FtR No.496 of 2020 in PRC No.53 of 2025 of saroornagar porice Station in respect of the alleged offences under Sections 417,323,'506 lpC.

2. Heard Sri R. Subash, learned counsel representing Sri P.B.H. Vishnu, learned counsel on record for the petitioners and sri Jithender Rao Veeramalla, learned Additional Public Prosecutor for the respondents.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioners has submitted that the trial court has not followed the correct principles of law and has taken cognizance of the offences against the accused without any reasoning and that in a mechanical manner the said orders are passed and that the trial court failed to follow 2 EID,J Cd.P. No.1$1a o12025 the guidelines of the Apex Court while taking cognizance of the offences against the accused. Thus, the learned counsel has prayed to give a direction to the concerned Magistrate to strictly follow the law laid down by the Hon'le Apex Court and direct to recall its cognizance order and decide the Crl.M.P.N o.552 of 2025 afresh by following the guidelines of the Apex Court.

4. Learned Additional Public Prosecutor has opposed submitting that the Magistrate cannot recall his own order and it is not permissible to give such a direction to recall the orders under section 210 of BNSS. He, therefore, prayed.to dismiss the petition.

5. Perused the record.

6. The petitioners herein are aggrieved by the orders of cognizance taken by the trial court in crl.M.P. No.496 of 2020. The cognizance order dated 01.07 -2025 passed by the learned Magistrate is as under: "This case is taken on file against accused No.1 for the offences under Sections 376(2XnXj)' 417, 493, 494, 323,506, 384, 354-D, 354-C read with 34 IPC and Section 66(e) of !T Act, take the cognizance against A2 to A4 for the offences U/s. -z' c7i i 3 ETO,J Ct .P. No.13316 of 2025 417 , 323 & 506 IPC & take cognizance against AS for the offence U/s. 5061PC."

7. A bare perusal of the said cognizance order shows that no reasons were assigned by the Magistrate while passing the cognizance order and prima fatcie satisfaction of the court while taking the cognizance is not recorded. The petitioners herein seek a direction to dispose of the crl.M.p. No.552 of 2025 filed by the petitioners herein before the trial court under section 210 of BNSS. The said crr.M.p. No.552 of 202{> is filed with a prayer to recafl the impugned order dated c)1.07.2025 taking cognizance of the alleged offences against the accused Nos.1 to 4, in the light of the law laid down by the Hon'ble supreme court. since the application is filed under section 210 of BNSS, the said provision is extracted hereunder for the sake of reference: "Section 2{0: Cognizance of offences by Magistrate.: (1) Subject to the provisions of this Chapter, any Magistrate of the first class, and any Magistrate of the second class specially empowered in this behalf under sub-section (2), may take cognizance of any offence- (a) upon receiving a complaint of facts, including any complaint filed by a person authorised unOei any special law, which constitutes such offence; 4 ETD,J Crl.P. No.1331A of 2025 (b) upon a police report (submitted in any mode including electronic mode) of such facts; (c) upon information received from any person other than a police officer, or upon his own knowledge, that such offence has been committed. (2) The Chief Judicial Magistrate may empower any Magistrate of the second class to take cognizance under sub-section (1) of such offences as are within his competence to inquire into or try."

8. The said provision empowers the Magistrate to take cognizance, but recalling its own order of cognizance is not envisaged in the said provision. No such power is vested with the Magistrate to recall its own cognizance order. The tvlagistrate should assign reasons while taking cognizance of offences against the accused. ln the present .case, the Magistrate has not assigned any reasons. The Magistrate should examine as to the pima facie case against the accused and record its satisfaction with regard to the existence of the prima facie case against the accused. But, the tearned Magistrate cannot recall its own order of cognizance. Hence, no such direction can be given to the Magistrate.

9. lt is pertinent to take note of the fact that the petitioners herein, have earlier filed writ petition, which was not numbeqgd and when the office took an objection, it was listed 5 ETO,J Crl.P. No.13316 ol 2025 before a Division Bench, vide wp sR No,34377 of 2025, wherein it was held that the grievance of the party-in- person/petitioner is with regard to taking cognizance vide order dated 01.07.2025 on the charge sheet filed in FtR No.4g6 of 2020 and thus, they are not inctined to entertain the writ petition for the nature of the retief sought for and therefore, the petitioners were directed to seek appropr:ate remedies according to law. subsequent to the said orders, the present petition is filed. lnstead of seeking an appropriate remedy of setting aside the cognizance order, the petitioners sought a direction to the Magistrate to decide the crl.tr/I.p. No.5s2 of 2025 filed by the petitioners before the trial court. The said crl.M.P. is filed seeking the Magistrate to recalt the cognizance order, which is not permissibte in the eye of law. 1(1. The rearned counser has further reried upon the decision of the Apex court in crr.A. No.903 of 2022, whereunder the sessions Judge has discharged accused- respondent No.2 therein for the offence under section 376 lPC. The High court has arso dectined to interfere with the said order, against which the matter reached the supreme court and it was herd that the aileged offence under section 6 EfO,J Crl.P. No.,3316 ot 2025 376 IPC and other offences under Section 504 and 506 IPC do not fall within the ambit of 'one series of acts so connected together for the purpose of trial together in terms of Section 220 Cr.P.C

11. With the said observation, the Apex Court has upheld the order of discharging the accused for the offence under Section 376 IPC for want of territorialjurisdiction.

12. But, in the present case the petitioners herein are seeking a direction to the Magistrate to recall its own cognizance order, which is impermissible in law as discussed supra. Therefore, the said decision cannot be applied to the case on hand.

13. Learned counsel for the petitioners has further relied upon the orders passed by the Division Bench of this Court in W.A. No.204 of 2013 wherein the order dated

09.01 .2023 passed of a learned Single Judge of this Court in W.P. No.869 of 2013 was challenged. ln the writ petition, the inaction of the Additional Judicial Magistrate of First Class in disposing of Criminal M.P. filed under Section 91 of the Cr.P.C. was chatlenged. The learned Single Judge has dismissed the petition by observing that it is frivolous and not L - '.5: / 7 EfO,J C,t.P. No.13r7a ol 2025 maintainable. When the writ appeal was filed against the said order, the wrlt appeal was disposed of by observing that the appellant is at liberty to take steps before the learned Additional .Judicial [\Iagistrate of First Class and the learned Magistrate was directed to dispose of the matter in accordance with law. ln the said case, the Criminal M.P. was kept pending and was not disposed of and it was under Section 91 of Cr.P.C., which is with regard to summoning of a document

14. ln the present case, the petition is filed under Section 210 Cr.P.C. wherein the Magistrate is empowered to take cognizance but the Magistrate cannot recall its own order The petitioners herein have filed the said Crl.M.P. before the Magistrate to recall its own cognizance order. This Court cannot give a direction to invoke the power which is not vested with the said court. Hence, the cited decision is not applicable to the present case. 15 ln Adalat Prasad v. Rooplal Jinda! and othersl summons were issued to the accused and the accused has filed an application under Section 203 Cr.P.C. before the Magistrate and the Magistrate after hearing the parties, I lzool; z scc rsa 8 ETO,J Ct .P. No-1i316 ot zOZs recailed the said summons. The order of the Magistrate in recalling the summons were chartenged in a revision petition before the High court on the ground that the Magistrate has no jurisdiction to recall the said summons The High court has allowed the revision. Thereafter, an appeat was fired before the Apex Court. lt was held by the Apex Court that: "lt is true that if the Magistrate taking cognizance of offences, issues process, without there being any allegation against the accused or any material implicating the accused was in contravention of provisions of Section 200 and 202 Cr.p.C., the order of Magistrate may be vitiated, but then the relief, an aggrieved accused can obtain at this stage is not by invoking Section 203 Cr.p.C., because the Code does not contemplate a review of an order,,, and it was further held that the view of the supreme court in K.M. Mathew v. state of Kerara t(f 992) 1 scc 21fl that no specific provision is required for recatling an erroneous order, amounting to one without jurisdiction, does not ray down the correct law. Thereby the orders of the Magistrate recalting the summons was set aside by the Apex court. Thus, in the right of the said decision and in view of the above herd discussion, the petition lacks merit and is riabre to be dismissed 9 ETD,J Crl.P. No.13316 of 2025

16. tn the result, the Criminal Petition is dismissed Miscellaneous Petitions, if any pending, shall stand closed / /TRUECOPY / / SD/. P.CH.NAGABHUSHAMBA DEPUTY REGISTRAR G SECTION OFFICER To,

1. The Special '[udicial Magistrate of First C1ass-cum-Excise-cum-V Additional Metropolitan Magistrate-cum-V Additional Junior Civil Judge, Ranga Reddy District at L.B Nagar.

2. The Station l{ouse Officer, Saroornagar Poiice, Rachakonda. CC to Siri Peruka Bala Harivishnu, Advocate [OI'UC]

4. One CC to the Public Prosecutor, High Court Buildings, Hyderabad. [OPUC] 5. Two CD Copies. ICK/PSL Yv 'i.,:. i f ,a rHE sra o,J * 20r{ottM * qE0 HIGH COURT I DATED:06 / 1'l /20.25 ORDER CRLP.No.13376 of 2025 Dismissing the Criminal Petition. I *S^%^**