Allahabad High Court: In a criminal revision against the order passed by Sessions Judge, for the offences under Sections 147, 148, 149, 308, 323, 504, 506 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’), wherein the Court has rejected the application filed by the accused/ revisionist under Section 227 of the Code of Criminal procedure Code, 1973 (‘CrPC’) Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi, J. held that the Trial Court has considered the entire facts, evidence and other material available on record and after analysing it has concluded that there is sufficient ground to frame charges under the said Sections, and thus has rejected the discharge application. So, there is no illegality in the impugned summoning order.
In the case at hand, the First Information Report (‘FIR’) was lodged against the accused persons, alleging that they came at the door of the complainants and started to abuse them. Meanwhile, their other family members also came at the door and started to assault the complainant and his brother with iron rod, bricks danda and pistol, causing serious head injury to his brother. The accused persons ran away presuming that the complainant and his brother were dead. The injured were medically examined and after investigation, a charge sheet was submitted against all the accused persons. The accused moved an application under Section 227 of CrPC, alleging therein that the injured have not suffered any grievous injury. The doctor who has conducted the medical examination has not stated that injuries of the injured are grievous in nature which may cause death. The doctor has given the opinion that injuries are simple in nature. No supplementary report has been prepared based on the X-Ray report and C.T. Scan. Hence, no offence under Section 308 of IPC is made out.
The Court took note of Section 308 of IPC and said that it consists of two parts. The first is related to no injury cases while the second part deals with where hurt is caused. So, what is the material is intention or knowledge and the circumstances in which the act has been done and not the injuries. The intention or knowledge and the circumstances under which the act has been done is to be gathered from the allegations of the FIR, the evidence and other material and all other attending circumstances of the case. There are allegations in the FIR that accused persons were armed with iron rods, danda and country made pistol, and they assaulted the injured with these weapons, causing head injury.
The Court also said that it is also settled that at the stage of framing charge the test of prima-facie case must be applied. If there is ground for presuming that the accused has committed the offence, a court can justifiably say that a prima-facie case against him exists and framing of charge is justified. If based on materials on record, the Courts concluded that commission of offence is probable, a case for framing charge exists. Further, an order of discharge would be warranted only in those cases where the court is satisfied that there are no chances of conviction, and the trial would be a futile exercise.
Thus, the Court dismissed the criminal revision, as it was devoid of merits.
[Ramji Prasad v. State of UP, 2023 SCC OnLine All 33, decided on 17-01-2023]
Order by: Justice Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi
*Apoorva Goel, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.