High Court
Case Details
Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:61781 Court No. - 80 Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 9081 of 2024 Appellant :- Gautam Pandey @ Gautam Kumar Pandey Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others Counsel for Appellant :- Brajesh Kumar Dwivedi Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.,Sunil Kumar Singh Hon'ble Nalin Kumar Srivastava,J. 1. This criminal appeal under Section 14-A (1) Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (in short 'the SC/ST Act') has been preferred by the appellant - Gautam Pandey @ Gautam Kumar Pandey with the prayer to set-aside the cognizance / summoning order dated 15.4.2024 passed by the Special Judge (SC/ST Act), Azamgarh, the charge sheet and the entire proceedings of Special Case No. 171 of 2024, arising out of case crime no. 45 of 2024, under Sections 323, 504, 506 IPC and 3(1)(da), 3(1)(dha), 3(2)( va) the SC/ST Act, P.S. Ahraula, District Azamgarh. Further prayer has been made to stay the further proceedings of the said case also the impugned summoning order.
Legal Reasoning
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. In this matter, it is true that according to the statement of the informant under Section 161 CrPC, Kali Prasad is the only witness of incident but he further states that some other persons were also present at the time of the occurrence and the incident took place in a sabzi market. Hence, the incident happened in a public place within public view. Further, it appears from the perusal of the record that some applications against the appellant were earlier given to the authorities by the said Kali Prasad but at this stage it cannot be adjudicated whether the said applications were based on false allegations or not. It also reveals from the perusal of the record that since the informant was harassed by the appellant on some earlier occasion also, the appellant very well knew that the informant belonged to the SC/ST community whereas the appellant is not a member of SC/ST community. This fact can also not to be ignored that the informant appeared before the doctor for his medical examination and he was complaining of pain in right side back and right arm, though no external injury was found. The prosecution claims that the accused appellant hurled abuses to the informant with caste related remarks and also made assault upon him. 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 and accordingly cognizance under Sections 323, 504, 506 IPC and 3(1) (da), 3(1)(dha), 3(2)( va) the SC/ST Act was rightly taken by the Court. 11. 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. 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 :- 23.4.2025 safi Digitally signed by :- MAHBOOB SAFI High Court of Judicature at Allahabad
Arguments
2. Heard learned counsel for the appellant as well as the learned A.G.A. for the State and perused the entire record. Though the name of Shri Sunil Kumar Singh, Advocate has been printed in the cause list for the opposite party nos.2 and 3 but none has appeared for the said opposite parties even in the revised call. 3. The facts of this case, as unfolded in the F.I.R., are that on 2.2.2024 at 5.00 p.m. when the informant Ram Tirath, who is a member of SC/ST community, had gone to the market, the named accused person Gautam Pandey in a drunken condition made an assault upon him and also hurled abuses by caste related remarks addressing him 'chamariya saale' and also threatened for dire consequences. F.I.R. was lodged and after thorough investigation charge sheet has been submitted. The trial court after perusing the evidence available in the case diary took cognizance of the matter and the present appellant was summoned to face trial under Sections 323, 504, 506 IPC and 3(1)(da), 3(1)(dha), 3(2)( va) the SC/ST Act. 4. It is submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that appellant is innocent and has been falsely implicated in this case. The police has also submitted charge sheet on the basis of insufficient evidence against the appellant. Essential ingredients to constitute the alleged offences are lacking. The present prosecution has been instituted with a malafide intention. There is no independent witness of the alleged incident except one Kali Prasad nor the name of any independent witness has been mentioned in the statement of the informant under Section 161 CrPC. It is vehemently submitted that the writer of the written tehrir Kali Prasad had been very inimical to the appellant for long and he has already lodged some cases against the appellant in this matter. He also wrote a colourful story with false allegations and the appellant has been falsely implicated in this case. It is also submitted that the doctor while examining the informant has found absolutely no injury upon his body. Entire prosecution story is false and fabricated. Learned counsel for the appellant pointed out certain documents and statements in support of his contention. 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 AGA 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). 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