Sanjay Gandhi Vs. Union of India &
Ors [1978] INSC 27 (14 February 1978)
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
KRISHNAIYER, V.R.
SINGH, JASWANT
CITATION: 1978 AIR 514 1978 SCR (2) 861 1978
SCC (2) 39
CITATOR INFO :
RF 1978 SC1568 (11) RF 1979 SC 478 (93)
ACT:
Criminal Procedure Code (Act 11 of 1974),
1973 Ss. 193, 208, 209, 226 and 227--Duties of the Committal Court under the
new code when offence is--triable exclusively by the Court of Sessions,
clarified.
HEADNOTE:
A time schedule for the committal proceedings
in RC 2/1977- CIA-1 on the file of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Delhi
was-fixed by this Court on 2-2-1978. On the refusal by Committal Court to grant
him further time to inspect the records u/s 208 of the Crl.P.C., the
petitioner, a co- accused, moved an application for modification of this
Court's order dated 2-2-78 on the ground that he was not a party before this
Court in the earlier proceedings.
Rejecting the petition, the Court
HELD : 1. Where the offence is triable
exclusively by the Court of Session, the, Committing Magistrate has no power to
discharge the accused. Nor has he power to take oral evidence save where a
specific provision like S. 306 enjoins. Hence cross examination by the accused
out provision for the Magistrate save in the case of approvers.
No Examination-in-Chief,no cross examination.
[862 F]
2. It is not open to the Committal Court to
launch on a processof satisfying itself that a prima facie case has been made
lout on the merits. The jurisdiction once vested in the Committing Magistrate
under the earlier Code having been eliminated now under the present code, to
hold that he can go into the merits even for a prima facie satisfaction is to
frustrate Parliament's purpose in re-moulding S. 207-A (old code) into its
present non-discretionary shape.
Expedition intended by this change will
be-defeated successfully, if interpretatively it is held that a dress rehearsal
of a trial before the Magistrate is in order. The narrow inspection hole
through which the Committee Magistrate has to look at the case limits him
merely to ascertain whether the case, as disclosed by the police- report,
appears to him to show an offence triable solely by the Court of Session. If,
by error, a wrong section of the Penal Code is quoted be may look into that aspect.
[862 G-H, 863 A-B] If made-up facts unsupported by any material are reported by
the police and a Sessions offence is made to appear, it is perfectly open to
the Sessions Court u/s 227 Crl.P.C. to discharge the accused. That provision
takes care of grievance that the prosecution may stick a label mentioning a
Sessions offence and the accused will then be denied a valuable opportunity to
prove his ex-facto innocence. [863 B-C]
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION : Civil Miscellaneous
Petition Nos. 31853188 of 1978.
A. N.Mulla and D. Goburdhan for the
Petitioner.
R. Jethamlani, S. B. Jaishinghant' and R. N.
Sachthey for the Union of India.
Parveen Kumar for Respondent No. 2.
862 The Order of the Court was delivered by
KRISHNA IYER, J. No party to a criminal trial has a vested right in slow motion
justice since the soul of social justice in this area of law is prompt trial
followed by verdict of innocence or sentence. Since a fair trial is not a
limping hearing, we view with grave concern any judicial insouciance which
lengthens litigation to limits of exasperation. This key thought prompted us on
an earlier occasion to fix a reasonable, yet not hasty, time schedule for the
committal proceedings in R.C.2 977-CIA-f 'on the file of the Chief Metropolitan
Magistrate, Delhi, and this was done viably and with consent of the parties
then before us (one of whom is a principal accused represented by Senior
Counsel). We are satisfied that the Magistrate has acted in the spirit of this
Court's order as indeed he was bound to, in refusing time. Now, another
accused, who was not a party. to the earlier proceeding in this Court, has come
up with a petition praying for modification of the order fixing the time-table
for, and injecting a sense of tempo into, the hearing process and committal, on
the score that it hurts him by denying sufficient scope to examine the
allegedly voluminous records produced by the police running into around 20,000
pages. He further urges, through Shri A. R. Mulla, his learned counsel, that he
wishes to cross-examine the witnesses for the prosecution and to argue that no
prima facie case has been made out for commitment. Admittedly, one of the
offences in the charge sheet is s. 201 I.P.C.
which is exclusively triable by a Sessions
Court. Counsel argued that under s. 306 Cr. P.C. approvers (there are two in
this case) shall be examined as witness in the court of the Magistrate taking
cognizance of the offence, and to cross-examine them the accused needs to
persue, scan and scruitnise these 20,000 pages of files produced by the Police
which cannot be done without a few months of inspection before examination of
the witnesses.
We have heard counsel on both sides and
proceed to elucidate certain clear propositions under the new Code bearing upon
the committal of cases where the offence is triable exclusively by the Court of
Session. The Committing Magistrate in such cases has no power to discharge the
accused. Nor has he power to take oral evidence save where a specific provision
like s. 306 enjoins. From this it follows, that the argument that the accused
has to cross- examine is out of bounds for the Magistrate, save in the case of
approvers. No examination-in-chief, no cross- examination.
Secondly, it is not open to the committal
court to launch on a process of satisfy itself that a prima facie case has been
made out on the merits. The jurisdiction once vested in him under the earlier
Code has been eliminated now under the present Code. Therefore, to hold that he
can go into the merits even for a prima facie satisfaction is to frustrate the
Parliament's purpose in re-moulding s. 207-A (old Code) into its present
non-discretionary shape. Expedition was intended by this change and this will
be defeated successfully if interpretatively we hold that a dress rehearsal of
a trial before the Magistrate is in order. In our view, the narrow inspection
hole through which the committing Magistrate has to look at the case limits him
merely to 863 ascertain whether the case, as disclosed by the police report,
appears to the Magistrate to show an offence triable solely by the Court of
Session. Assuming the facts to be correct as stated in the police report, if
the offence is plainly one under s. 201 I.P.C. the Magistrate has simply to
commit for trial 'before the Court of Sessions. if, by error, a wrong section
of the Penal Code is quoted, he may look into that aspect. Shri Mulla submits
if the Magistrate's jurisdiction were to be severely truncated like this the
prosecution may stick a label mentioning a sessions offence (if we may use that
expresson for brevity's sake) and the accused will be denied a valuable
opportunity to prove his ex facie innocence. There is no merit in this
contention. If made up facts unsupported by any material are reported by the
police and a Sessions offence is made to appear, it is, perfectly open to the
Sessions Court under s. 227 Cr.P.C. to discharge the accused. This provision
takes care of the alleged grievance of the accused.
Indeed, we are not at all satisfied that the
Magistrate has denied an opportunity for the petitioner to post himself
adequately with the police records adduced in the case.- Sufficient
adjournments, were granted; indefinite postponements were accorded,-the
presumed reason being time for inspection and more inspection. After all, if
the oral testimony is to be confined to the two approvers, not all the records
put in by the police become necessary for the accused to cross-examine them.
The exaggeration implied in the statement that 20,000 pages of voluminous
record have been filed by the police was brought out by the counsel for the
State, Shri Jethmalani. Supposing an entry in a register is relied on by the
police; the other pages in the voluminous register being of no concern or
pertinence to the case, even remotely, there is no point in counting the total
number of pages of the register since the case is concerned only with one
entry. We are far from, satisfied about the genuineness of the petitioner's
grievance, since we are inclined to think that counting the number of pages of
irrelevant papers necessarily tied up with relevant ones (being in the same
book or file) is a farcical process. It may be sheer waste of time for the
accused to inspect totally irrelevant material. We are convinced that the
Magistrate has afforded sufficient opportunity and he has rightly put his foot
down on further procrastination.
,We dismiss the petition generally speaking,
but having regard to the fact that the case begins tomorrow and the party has
perhaps pinned his hopes upon something happening in this Court, and also
because of the fact that the offence is a serious one, we direct the Magistrate
to start the hearing and examine the approvers from 20-2-1978 onwards.
We make it clear that the Committing
Magistrate will take zealous care to dispose of the committal proceedings with
despatch. We allow the Magistrate four, days more time, beyond the date fixed
by this Court in the earlier order for the commitment of the case and a like
extension in the rest of the period fixed there.
S.R.
Petition rejected.
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