High Court
Case Details
Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:69926 Court No. - 80 Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 931 of 2025 Appellant :- Shahvej Respondent :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Appellant :- Sandeep Kumar Chaurasiya Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.,Shakil Ahmad
Legal Reasoning
9. 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. 10. So far as the case in hand is concerned, the prosecution claims that the accused appellant hurled abuses to the informant with caste related remarks and also made assault upon him. The witnesses of this case including the informant have affirmed this fact when he was interrogated by the I.O. under Section 161 Cr.P.C. Further, evidence collected by the I.O. prima facie shows that the offence has been committed with the informant, who is a member of the SC/ST community whereas the appellant is not a member of SC/ST community and accused appellant was very well knowing that the informant/injured is a member of SC/ST community. Hence, all the offences for which cognizance in this case was taken by the Court concerned are prima facie made out on the basis of evidence collected by the Investigating Officer. 11. So far as the argument advanced by learned counsel for the appellant that the opposite party no. 2-informant got some employment in Kuwait and received salary as well is concerned, learned counsel for the informant vehemently opposed this argument and it was clarified that for a period of only ten days the informant worked somewhere in Kuwait but since his papers were forged and Visa was also not proper and no temporary domicile certificate was given to him by the appellant, he was found to be a forged person bearing forged documents with him and that is why he was sent to jail there and then he came back to India. It was also clarified that Rs.3, 81, 870/- was paid by the informant to the appellant through google pay and rest of the money was paid in cash but as promised by the appellant, he did not provide temporary certificate which was required in the matter. Since the electronic evidence was there, the appellant has not been falsely implicated in this matter. On the contrary, learned counsel for the appellant also submitted that the informant had borrowed some money from him which was returned back by him and no money was taken by the appellant on the false pretext of providing employment to the informant in Kuwait however, there is no evidence on record that the informant at any time had borrowed the money from the appellant 12. As is evident, all the 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 appellant are not made out and the record shows that a cognizable offence is clearly made out against the appellant. Sufficient evidence has been collected against the appellant during the course of investigation. Further, after collecting ample evidence the Court concerned has taken cognizance on the charge sheet submitted by the I.O., there is no justification to quash the charge sheet or to set aside the cognizance/summoning order. The Court concerned did not err in taking cognizance into the matter and thereby to summon the accused/appellant to face trial for the offences made out prima facie. There is no force in the submissions made by the learned counsel for the appellant. The impugned order does not suffer from illegality, infirmity, perversity or lack of judicial mind. The prayer made in the appeal is refused. The criminal appeal being devoid of merits is liable to be dismissed and the same is accordingly dismissed. Order Date :- 2.5.2025 Rmk. Digitally signed by :- Digitally signed by :- RAM MURTI KUSHWAHA RAM MURTI KUSHWAHA High Court of Judicature at Allahabad High Court of Judicature at Allahabad
Arguments
Hon'ble Nalin Kumar Srivastava,J. to quash/set the prayer 1. This criminal appeal under Section 14-A (1) Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (hereinafter referred to as 'SC/ST Act') has been preferred by the appellant- Shahvej with the cognizance/summoning order dated 25.10.2024 passed by the Special Judge (SC/ST Act), Bijnor and the entire proceedings of Case No. 2042 of 2024 (State Vs. Shahvej and another), arising out of Case Crime No. 349 of 2024, under Sections 420, 406 I.P.C. and Section 3(2)(va) of SC/ST Act, Police Station Chandpur, District Bijnor, pending in the court of learned Special Judge, SC/ST Act, Bijnor. Further prayer has been made to stay the further proceedings of the said case and also the impugned summoning order. aside 2. Heard learned counsel for the appellant, learned counsel for the opposite party No.2 as well as the learned A.G.A. for the State and perused the entire record. 3. The facts of this case, as unfolded in the F.I.R., are that the informant gave Rs.3, 81, 870/- to the appellant who promised to provide an employment to him at Kuwait and when on 24.05.2023 the informant went to Kuwait, he was told that all the proceedings with regard to promise made by the appellant are forged and his Visa was also not permissible at Kuwait and resultantly he was sent to jail and after some days he came back to India. The appellant further gave Rs.1,11,520/- (410 Kuwaity Dinar) and when he asked the appellant to return his money, he was threatened for life. The. F.I.R. was lodged and after investigation charge sheet was submitted by the Investigating Officer and learned Special Judge SC/ST Act, Bijnor taking cognizance of the offence passed summoning order dated 25.10.2025 and the appellant was summoned to face trial under Sections 420, 406 I.P.C. and Section 3(2)(va) SC/ST Act, Police Station Chandpur, District Bijnor. 4. It is submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that appellant is innocent, he has not committed the alleged offence but he has been falsely implicated in this case. The present prosecution has been instituted with a malafide intention. The entire prosecution story is false and fabricated. There are contradictions in the statements of the informant and that of the witnesses recorded before the Investigating Officer under Section 161 CrPC. The police has also submitted charge sheet on the basis of insufficient evidence against the appellant. Essential ingredients to constitute the alleged offences under SC/ST Act are lacking. Learned counsel for the appellant pointed out certain documents and statements in support of his submissions. It is further submitted that the F.I.R. of this case was lodged after 14 months of the occurrence and no plausible explanation of delay in lodging the F.I.R. has been given by the prosecution. It is next submitted that in the entire F.I.R. date of alleged payment of money by the informant to the appellant has not been mentioned. It is also submitted that as a matter of fact, the opposite party no. 2/informant got a job in Kuwait and this fact has been corroborated by his salary slip. It is also submitted that police clearance certificate was also issued in favour of the informant-opposite party no. 2 and he was permitted to visit to Kuwait as well. 5. The next argument advanced by the learned counsel for the appellant is that the I.O. of this case collected absolutely no evidence to the effect that the incident took place in any place within the public view and intentional insult or intimidation was made by the appellant. It is further submitted that there is not even an iota of evidence on record as collected by the I.O. that the appellant committed the alleged offence for the simple reason of the injured/informant being a member of SC/ST community. It is also submitted that the appellant never hurled abuses to insult him by caste related remarks. The impugned order suffers from infirmity and illegality warranting interference by this Court. 6. Per contra, the learned counsel for the opposite party no.2 as well as the learned A.G.A. opposed the appeal and submitted 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 concerned after applying its judicial mind has passed the cognizance and summoning order on the basis of sufficient evidence on record. There is no infirmity or illegality in the impugned order warranting interference by this Court. Hence, the appeal having no force is liable to be dismissed. 7. I have considered the rival submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the entire record including the impugned order. 8. 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 as to whether sufficient grounds exist 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).