Raj Kumar & Anr. v. Satish Chander & Ors.

The Hon(cid:146)ble Mr.Justice Surinder Singh, J. Whether approved for reporting ?1.No For the petitioner: Ms. Radhika Gautam, Advocate. For respondents: Surinder Singh, J. (Oral) Heard. The facts in brief giving rise to this petition are, respondent Satish Chander filed a complaint against the petitioners herein and the proforma respondents. After recording preliminary evidence, the learned trial court summoned them as accused under sections 452, 380 and 506 read with sections 147, 149, 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, vide order dated 13.7.2006. It was assailed in revision petition before the learned Sessions Judge, Una, which was dismissed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge, as the order passed by the learned trial court did not suffer from any illegality. 1 Whether the reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment ?.yes. 2 Hence, this petition has been filed, under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

Ms. Radhika Gautam, learned counsel petitioners has vehemently argued that the statement of the complainant and his witness Subhash Chand are contradictory and the learned trial court wrongly put reliance on their statements and the discretion exercised by the learned trial court for issuing of process against the accused was without any application of mind and the complaint was counter blast to a case instituted under section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code and also an application for maintenance filed by Anil Kumar. The petitioners have been dragged into the present litigation un-necessarily. It was further argued that no independent witness was examined and the courts below did not appreciate the facts in right perspective. Therefore, indulgence of this court is sought for quashing the impugned orders of the courts below. I have considered the above contentions of the learned counsel for the petitioners and have gone through the orders assailed.

As a matter of fact, the standard for ascertaining, whether the evidence in preliminary enquiry discloses sufficient grounds for proceeding against the accused, is lower than one at the stage of framing charges in a warrant case triable by a Magistrate. In this case, there is a statement of the complainant and his witnesses against the accused persons which are enough to form the opinion by the learned trial court for prima-facie summoning the 3 accused person and he was not required to pass a detailed order for that. The test is not whether there will be a conviction but whether prima-facie case has been made out. It is settled law that before directing issue of process the Magistrate must apply his judicial mind to the material before him and ascertain not only that there is sufficient ground but also the nature of the offence as issue of summons or warrant would depend upon it, but he is not required to pass a detailed order as to what is in his mind to issue the process at that stage.