High Court · 2025

Hon'ble Nalin Kumar Srivastava,J.

1. Case called out in the revised list. None is present on behalf of opposite party no.2 / complainant even in the revised call, although names of the counsel appearing for the respondent no.2 are printed in the list.

2. The present criminal appeal under Section 14-A(1) Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (in short 'the SC/ST Act') has been filed by the appellants - Sohanvir @ Sohanvir Dhama, Sumit @ Sumit Dhama and Pradeep to set aside the impugned order dated 12.9.2024 passed by Additional District & Session Judge / Special Judge, (SC/ST Act), Baghpat in Complaint No.64 of 2023 (Smt. Sarla Devi Vs. Sohanvir and others), under Sections 323, 504 IPC and Section 3(1)Dha of the SC/ST Act, Police Station Binauli, District Baghpat, whereby the appellants have been summoned to face trial for the aforesaid offfences.

3. Heard learned counsel for the appellants, learned AGA for the State and perused the material available on record.

4. The complainant / opposite party no.2 filed a criminal complaint alleging therein that the complainant Sarla Devi, who is a member of SC/ST community and works as a sweeper, is pressurized by Sohanvir to take away the rubbish of his own house and buffaloes who also threatens to falsely implicate the complainant and her sons in some case. On 23.7.2023 at about 7:30 A.M., when she was doing her work on street, the said Sohanvir alongwith his servant Pradeep and son Sumit started abusing her and when she ran to her house, they chased her and hurled abuses by caste related remarks and tried to outrage her modesty after entering into her house. Subsequently, on the next day, the aforesaid three accused persons attacked upon the son of the complainant hurling abuses to him on road. Anyhow he rescued. When the police did not take any action, an application under section 156 (3) Cr.P.C. was moved before the court and the said application was treated as a criminal complaint by Special Judge / Additional District Judge (SC/ST Act) vide order dated 2.12.2023.

5. After recording the evidence of the complainant under section 200 Cr.P.C. and the witnesses Savita and Geeta as P.W.1 and P.W.2 under section 202 Cr.P.C. and also considering the material available on record, summoning order was passed against the named accused persons Sohanvir @ Sohanvir Dhama, Sumit @ Sumit Dhama and Pradeep to face trial under Sections 323, 504 IPC and Section 3(1)Dha of the SC/ST Act. Feeling aggrieved with the summoning order, the present appeal has been preferred by the accused persons.

6. It is submitted by learned counsel for the appellants that they are innocent and have been falsely implicated in this case. The essential ingredients to establish the alleged offences under the SC/ST Act are lacking on the basis of evidence on record. Further, no offence was committed at a public place in public view. It is further submitted that there is no injury report of the alleged injured Shani, the son of the complainant on record. It is further submitted that the correct facts behind the incident were concealed by the complainant. As a matter of fact, on 24.7.2023 at 6:30 A.M., Shani @ Kala, the son of the complainant made an assault upon Pradeep, the servant of the appellant Sohanvir with intention to kill him with a sharp edged weapon and several injuries were inflicted upon him. The incident was seen by the informant of that incident Sohanvir. The accused Shani @ Kala also made an attempt to attack upon the informant Sohanvir with intention to kill him. Injured Pradeep was taken to the hospital. F.I.R. was lodged under sections 307, 308 IPC. The injured was medically examined and several injuries were found upon his body, which were in the form of incised wounds, lacerated wounds and abrasions. He was referred for x-ray and only to make a counter blast case, false complaint was filed after so many days of the incident on 6.10.2023 with a motive to create pressure upon the present appellants. It is also submitted that since the appellants were not present before the trial court at the time of passing the summoning order, the correct facts relating to the occurrence were concealed cleverly by the complainant and on the basis of bogus and false evidence appellants were summoned by the learned trial court to face trial. It is also submitted that upon the F.I.R. lodged by the appellant Sohanvir, the investigation is going on. There are material contradictions in the statement made by the complainant and her witnesses before the trial court under sections 200 and 202 Cr.P.C. The alleged injured Shani was never medically examined by the doctor and there is no injury report on record. All the aforesaid facts and documents are sufficient to show that the complaint filed by the complainant is nothing but a concocted story based upon fabricated facts. Only general role has been assigned to all the appellants. They are responsible persons of the society. On the ground of aforesaid submissions, lastly a submission has been made by the learned counsel for the appellants to quash the entire proceedings of complaint case no. 64 of 2023 as well as summoning order dated 12.9.2024 passed by the learned Special Judge (SC/ST Act).

7. Per contra, learned State counsel vehemently opposed the submissions put forward by the learned counsel for the appellants. It is submitted that since the F.I.R. of the complainant was not lodged by the police and no police officials came to help her, she was compelled to move an application under section 156 (3) Cr.P.C. before the court concerned belatedly. The complainant is a poor lady, who works as sweeper and is a member of the SC/ST community and belongs to the weaker section of the society. It is also submitted that since the police did not lodge the F.I.R. of the complainant, her injured son could not be medically examined. It is also submitted that Shani, the son of the complainant has been falsely implicated in the F.I.R. lodged by appellant no.1 Sohanvir. The learned trial court has committed no mistake in summoning the accused persons / appellants on the basis of the evidence on record and at the stage of summoning the accused persons the learned trial court was not obliged to make a detailed analysis of the evidence on record.

8. It is further urged that offence in this case has been committed at a public place within public view by the present appellants and in the complaint the complainant has specifically averred that she belongs to SC/ST community. It is also submitted that the present case and the case lodged by the appellants are cross-cases and since the police under influence of the appellants lodged their report and did not help the complainant and she was running here and there for lodging her report at the police station but failed and it compelled her to move an application U/S 156(3) CrPC which took a long time to be decided. It is also submitted that since both the cases are cross cases, the trial court committed no legal or factual error in passing the impugned summoning order against the appellants. It is further submitted that to establish the offence under Section 3(1)Dha of the SC/ST Act, sufficient evidence is available on record. It is also submitted that at the stage of summoning the trial court is not required at all to pass a detailed order elaborating the complete facts. The impugned summoning order does not suffer from infirmity, illegality, perversity or lack of judicial mind.

9. I have considered the rival submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the entire record carefully.

10. It is trite law that at the stage of taking cognizance and summoning the accused, the Magistrate / Court dealing with the matter is required to apply judicial mind only with a view to take cognizance of the offence to find-out as to whether prima-facie case has been made out to summon the accused or not. The Court at this stage is not required to analyze the material on record to find-out as to whether the matter may lead to conviction or not. Sufficiency of materials for the purpose of conviction is not required. It is also settled that even when there are materials raising strong suspicion against the accused, the Court will be justified in taking cognizance and summoning the accused. The Court / Magistrate is not required to analyze the evidence on merits but to scrutinize the evidence only with a view to initiate criminal proceedings in respect of the offence which is said to have been committed (Vide : R.P. Kapur Vs. State of Punjab, A.I.R. 1960 S.C. 866, State of Haryana Vs. Bhajan Lal, 1992 SCC (Cr.) 426, State of Bihar Vs. P.P.Sharma, 1992 SCC (Cr.) 192 and Zandu Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. Vs. Mohd. Saraful Haq and another, 2005 SCC (Cr.) 283).

11. In State of Gujarat v. Afroz Mohammed Hasanfatta, (2019) 20 SCC 539, the Hon'ble Apex Court reiterated that for issuance of summons strict standard of proof of satisfaction of the Magistrate regarding sufficiency of ground(s) to proceed in the matter is not required and such satisfaction should be based only on prima facie evidence. Before summoning the accused, the facts stated will have to be accepted as they appear on the very face of it. Sufficiency of evidence to hold accused guilty, merits of matter and defence pleas have to be examined at the stage of trial and not at the stage of issuance of process. Whether statement of a witness is hearsay and whether it is supported by "contemporaneous exposition" and whether it would fall under "res gestae" and whether it is admissible or not is to be seen only at the time of trial.

12. So far as the case in hand is concerned, the son of the complainant was beaten by the appellants on a public road in public view, which brings the matter within the cover of the offence provided under Section 3 (1) (dha) SC/ST Act [also to be read as Section 3 (1) (s) SC/ST Act].

13. Thus, it is clear that in a criminal complaint case the Magistrate may summon an accused when he finds prima facie case to be made out against him and other materials available on record to proceed against the accused. It is also settled that in a criminal complaint case summoning order has to be passed on the basis of the statements of the complainant and the witnesses under Sections 200 and result of enquiry, if any, under Section 202 CrPC alongwith relevant documentary evidence.

14. In the instant case, the statement of the complainant recorded under Section 200 CrPC has been corroborated by the witnesses without any material contradiction. From their evidence as well it appears that incident occurred as narrated in the criminal complaint. It is mentioned in the complaint itself that part of the occurrence was committed outside the house of the opposite party no.2 / complainant which was a public place within public view. The complainant claims that the accused appellants hurled abuses to her with caste related remarks and subsequently also made assault upon her son hurling abuses. Hence, the summoning order passed on the basis of evidence available on record is a legally correct order.

15. In Kewal Krishan S/O Lachman Das Vs. Suraj Bhan And Anr., AIR 1980 SC 1780, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held as under : "At the stage of Ss. 203 and 204, in a case exclusively triable by the Court of Session, all that Magistrate has to do is to see whether on a cursory perusal of complaint and evidence recorded during preliminary inquiry u/Ss. 200 and 203, there is prima facie evidence in support of the charge leveled against accused. All that he has to see is whether or not there is "Sufficient ground for proceeding" against accused. At this stage, Magistrate is not to weigh the evidence meticulously as if he were trial court. The standard to be adopted by the Magistrate in scrutinising evidence is not same as one which is to be kept in view at stage of framing charges. The standard of proof and judgment, which is to be applied finally before finding accused guilty or otherwise, is not exactly to be applied at stage of framing charges. A fortiori, at stage of Ss. 202/204, if there is prima facie evidence in support of allegations in complaint relating to a case exclusively triable by Court of Session, that will be a sufficient ground for issuing process to accused and committing them for trial to the Court of Session."

16. Hon'ble Supreme Court in U.P. Pollution Control Board Vs. M/s Mohan Meakins Ltd. and others, AIR 2000 SC 1456 held that: "The legislature has stressed the need to record reasons in certain situations such as dismissal of a complaint without issuing process. There is no such legal requirement imposed on a magistrate for passing detailed order while issuing summons. The process issued to accused cannot be quashed merely on the ground that the Magistrate had not passed a speaking order."

17. Further, as is evident, several submissions made at the bar relate to the disputed questions of fact, which cannot be adjudicated upon by this Court in this appeal. At this stage only a prima facie case is to be seen in the light of the settled law, as discussed here-in-above. From a perusal of the material available on record and keeping in view the facts of the case, at this stage it cannot be said that offences levelled against the appellants are not made out and the record shows that a cognizable offence is clearly made out against the appellants. Sufficient evidence has been adduced against the appellants. The Court concerned did not err in taking cognizance into the matter and thereby to summon the accused / appellants to face trial for the offences made out prima facie. There is no force in the submissions made by the learned counsel for the appellants. To the satisfaction of this Court, the impugned order does not suffer from illegality, infirmity, perversity or lack of judicial mind. The prayer made in the appeal is refused.

18. The criminal appeal being devoid of merits is liable to be dismissed and the same is accordingly dismissed. Order Date :- 8.7.2025 SANDEEP SHARMA SANDEEP SHARMA High Court of Judicature at Allahabad High Court of Judicature at Allahabad

Hon'ble Nalin Kumar Srivastava,J.

1. Case called out in the revised list. None is present on behalf of opposite party no.2 / complainant even in the revised call, although names of the counsel appearing for the respondent no.2 are printed in the list.

2. The present criminal appeal under Section 14-A(1) Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (in short 'the SC/ST Act') has been filed by the appellants - Sohanvir @ Sohanvir Dhama, Sumit @ Sumit Dhama and Pradeep to set aside the impugned order dated 12.9.2024 passed by Additional District & Session Judge / Special Judge, (SC/ST Act), Baghpat in Complaint No.64 of 2023 (Smt. Sarla Devi Vs. Sohanvir and others), under Sections 323, 504 IPC and Section 3(1)Dha of the SC/ST Act, Police Station Binauli, District Baghpat, whereby the appellants have been summoned to face trial for the aforesaid offfences.

3. Heard learned counsel for the appellants, learned AGA for the State and perused the material available on record.

4. The complainant / opposite party no.2 filed a criminal complaint alleging therein that the complainant Sarla Devi, who is a member of SC/ST community and works as a sweeper, is pressurized by Sohanvir to take away the rubbish of his own house and buffaloes who also threatens to falsely implicate the complainant and her sons in some case. On 23.7.2023 at about 7:30 A.M., when she was doing her work on street, the said Sohanvir alongwith his servant Pradeep and son Sumit started abusing her and when she ran to her house, they chased her and hurled abuses by caste related remarks and tried to outrage her modesty after entering into her house. Subsequently, on the next day, the aforesaid three accused persons attacked upon the son of the complainant hurling abuses to him on road. Anyhow he rescued. When the police did not take any action, an application under section 156 (3) Cr.P.C. was moved before the court and the said application was treated as a criminal complaint by Special Judge / Additional District Judge (SC/ST Act) vide order dated 2.12.2023.

5. After recording the evidence of the complainant under section 200 Cr.P.C. and the witnesses Savita and Geeta as P.W.1 and P.W.2 under section 202 Cr.P.C. and also considering the material available on record, summoning order was passed against the named accused persons Sohanvir @ Sohanvir Dhama, Sumit @ Sumit Dhama and Pradeep to face trial under Sections 323, 504 IPC and Section 3(1)Dha of the SC/ST Act. Feeling aggrieved with the summoning order, the present appeal has been preferred by the accused persons.

6. It is submitted by learned counsel for the appellants that they are innocent and have been falsely implicated in this case. The essential ingredients to establish the alleged offences under the SC/ST Act are lacking on the basis of evidence on record. Further, no offence was committed at a public place in public view. It is further submitted that there is no injury report of the alleged injured Shani, the son of the complainant on record. It is further submitted that the correct facts behind the incident were concealed by the complainant. As a matter of fact, on 24.7.2023 at 6:30 A.M., Shani @ Kala, the son of the complainant made an assault upon Pradeep, the servant of the appellant Sohanvir with intention to kill him with a sharp edged weapon and several injuries were inflicted upon him. The incident was seen by the informant of that incident Sohanvir. The accused Shani @ Kala also made an attempt to attack upon the informant Sohanvir with intention to kill him. Injured Pradeep was taken to the hospital. F.I.R. was lodged under sections 307, 308 IPC. The injured was medically examined and several injuries were found upon his body, which were in the form of incised wounds, lacerated wounds and abrasions. He was referred for x-ray and only to make a counter blast case, false complaint was filed after so many days of the incident on 6.10.2023 with a motive to create pressure upon the present appellants. It is also submitted that since the appellants were not present before the trial court at the time of passing the summoning order, the correct facts relating to the occurrence were concealed cleverly by the complainant and on the basis of bogus and false evidence appellants were summoned by the learned trial court to face trial. It is also submitted that upon the F.I.R. lodged by the appellant Sohanvir, the investigation is going on. There are material contradictions in the statement made by the complainant and her witnesses before the trial court under sections 200 and 202 Cr.P.C. The alleged injured Shani was never medically examined by the doctor and there is no injury report on record. All the aforesaid facts and documents are sufficient to show that the complaint filed by the complainant is nothing but a concocted story based upon fabricated facts. Only general role has been assigned to all the appellants. They are responsible persons of the society. On the ground of aforesaid submissions, lastly a submission has been made by the learned counsel for the appellants to quash the entire proceedings of complaint case no. 64 of 2023 as well as summoning order dated 12.9.2024 passed by the learned Special Judge (SC/ST Act).

7. Per contra, learned State counsel vehemently opposed the submissions put forward by the learned counsel for the appellants. It is submitted that since the F.I.R. of the complainant was not lodged by the police and no police officials came to help her, she was compelled to move an application under section 156 (3) Cr.P.C. before the court concerned belatedly. The complainant is a poor lady, who works as sweeper and is a member of the SC/ST community and belongs to the weaker section of the society. It is also submitted that since the police did not lodge the F.I.R. of the complainant, her injured son could not be medically examined. It is also submitted that Shani, the son of the complainant has been falsely implicated in the F.I.R. lodged by appellant no.1 Sohanvir. The learned trial court has committed no mistake in summoning the accused persons / appellants on the basis of the evidence on record and at the stage of summoning the accused persons the learned trial court was not obliged to make a detailed analysis of the evidence on record.

8. It is further urged that offence in this case has been committed at a public place within public view by the present appellants and in the complaint the complainant has specifically averred that she belongs to SC/ST community. It is also submitted that the present case and the case lodged by the appellants are cross-cases and since the police under influence of the appellants lodged their report and did not help the complainant and she was running here and there for lodging her report at the police station but failed and it compelled her to move an application U/S 156(3) CrPC which took a long time to be decided. It is also submitted that since both the cases are cross cases, the trial court committed no legal or factual error in passing the impugned summoning order against the appellants. It is further submitted that to establish the offence under Section 3(1)Dha of the SC/ST Act, sufficient evidence is available on record. It is also submitted that at the stage of summoning the trial court is not required at all to pass a detailed order elaborating the complete facts. The impugned summoning order does not suffer from infirmity, illegality, perversity or lack of judicial mind.

9. I have considered the rival submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the entire record carefully.

10. It is trite law that at the stage of taking cognizance and summoning the accused, the Magistrate / Court dealing with the matter is required to apply judicial mind only with a view to take cognizance of the offence to find-out as to whether prima-facie case has been made out to summon the accused or not. The Court at this stage is not required to analyze the material on record to find-out as to whether the matter may lead to conviction or not. Sufficiency of materials for the purpose of conviction is not required. It is also settled that even when there are materials raising strong suspicion against the accused, the Court will be justified in taking cognizance and summoning the accused. The Court / Magistrate is not required to analyze the evidence on merits but to scrutinize the evidence only with a view to initiate criminal proceedings in respect of the offence which is said to have been committed (Vide : R.P. Kapur Vs. State of Punjab, A.I.R. 1960 S.C. 866, State of Haryana Vs. Bhajan Lal, 1992 SCC (Cr.) 426, State of Bihar Vs. P.P.Sharma, 1992 SCC (Cr.) 192 and Zandu Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. Vs. Mohd. Saraful Haq and another, 2005 SCC (Cr.) 283).

11. In State of Gujarat v. Afroz Mohammed Hasanfatta, (2019) 20 SCC 539, the Hon'ble Apex Court reiterated that for issuance of summons strict standard of proof of satisfaction of the Magistrate regarding sufficiency of ground(s) to proceed in the matter is not required and such satisfaction should be based only on prima facie evidence. Before summoning the accused, the facts stated will have to be accepted as they appear on the very face of it. Sufficiency of evidence to hold accused guilty, merits of matter and defence pleas have to be examined at the stage of trial and not at the stage of issuance of process. Whether statement of a witness is hearsay and whether it is supported by "contemporaneous exposition" and whether it would fall under "res gestae" and whether it is admissible or not is to be seen only at the time of trial.

12. So far as the case in hand is concerned, the son of the complainant was beaten by the appellants on a public road in public view, which brings the matter within the cover of the offence provided under Section 3 (1) (dha) SC/ST Act [also to be read as Section 3 (1) (s) SC/ST Act].

13. Thus, it is clear that in a criminal complaint case the Magistrate may summon an accused when he finds prima facie case to be made out against him and other materials available on record to proceed against the accused. It is also settled that in a criminal complaint case summoning order has to be passed on the basis of the statements of the complainant and the witnesses under Sections 200 and result of enquiry, if any, under Section 202 CrPC alongwith relevant documentary evidence.

14. In the instant case, the statement of the complainant recorded under Section 200 CrPC has been corroborated by the witnesses without any material contradiction. From their evidence as well it appears that incident occurred as narrated in the criminal complaint. It is mentioned in the complaint itself that part of the occurrence was committed outside the house of the opposite party no.2 / complainant which was a public place within public view. The complainant claims that the accused appellants hurled abuses to her with caste related remarks and subsequently also made assault upon her son hurling abuses. Hence, the summoning order passed on the basis of evidence available on record is a legally correct order.

15. In Kewal Krishan S/O Lachman Das Vs. Suraj Bhan And Anr., AIR 1980 SC 1780, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held as under : "At the stage of Ss. 203 and 204, in a case exclusively triable by the Court of Session, all that Magistrate has to do is to see whether on a cursory perusal of complaint and evidence recorded during preliminary inquiry u/Ss. 200 and 203, there is prima facie evidence in support of the charge leveled against accused. All that he has to see is whether or not there is "Sufficient ground for proceeding" against accused. At this stage, Magistrate is not to weigh the evidence meticulously as if he were trial court. The standard to be adopted by the Magistrate in scrutinising evidence is not same as one which is to be kept in view at stage of framing charges. The standard of proof and judgment, which is to be applied finally before finding accused guilty or otherwise, is not exactly to be applied at stage of framing charges. A fortiori, at stage of Ss. 202/204, if there is prima facie evidence in support of allegations in complaint relating to a case exclusively triable by Court of Session, that will be a sufficient ground for issuing process to accused and committing them for trial to the Court of Session."

16. Hon'ble Supreme Court in U.P. Pollution Control Board Vs. M/s Mohan Meakins Ltd. and others, AIR 2000 SC 1456 held that: "The legislature has stressed the need to record reasons in certain situations such as dismissal of a complaint without issuing process. There is no such legal requirement imposed on a magistrate for passing detailed order while issuing summons. The process issued to accused cannot be quashed merely on the ground that the Magistrate had not passed a speaking order."

17. Further, as is evident, several submissions made at the bar relate to the disputed questions of fact, which cannot be adjudicated upon by this Court in this appeal. At this stage only a prima facie case is to be seen in the light of the settled law, as discussed here-in-above. From a perusal of the material available on record and keeping in view the facts of the case, at this stage it cannot be said that offences levelled against the appellants are not made out and the record shows that a cognizable offence is clearly made out against the appellants. Sufficient evidence has been adduced against the appellants. The Court concerned did not err in taking cognizance into the matter and thereby to summon the accused / appellants to face trial for the offences made out prima facie. There is no force in the submissions made by the learned counsel for the appellants. To the satisfaction of this Court, the impugned order does not suffer from illegality, infirmity, perversity or lack of judicial mind. The prayer made in the appeal is refused.

18. The criminal appeal being devoid of merits is liable to be dismissed and the same is accordingly dismissed. Order Date :- 8.7.2025 SANDEEP SHARMA SANDEEP SHARMA High Court of Judicature at Allahabad High Court of Judicature at Allahabad