Allahabad High Court calls for action against judge over failure to ensure presence of accused in 2018 case

The Allahabad High Court recently recommended action against a Judicial Magistrate for failing to take effective steps to ensure presence of the accused before it during the trial of a case under Essential Commodities Act [Vishwanath Agarwal and another vs. State of U.P. and others]..Justice Prashant Kumar found it shocking that in the trial pending since May 2018, only summons had been issued against the accused and despite their non-appearance, the court had not taken any coercive action.“Inspite of the fact that the applicants has not appeared before the trial court, the concerned Court below did not take any effective steps to get the summons served or to issue bailable warrants or non bailable warrants for ensuring appearance of the accused persons (applicants herein). Further perusal of order sheets does not reflect that either the summons were served upon the applicants or not and in case, the summons were served, what action the Court has taken against them,” the Court said..It further noted that the High Court has issued circulars to all Judicial Magistrates to take care of speedy trials in criminal cases. However, the Court said that the trial judge in the present case had not followed the instructions and not even bothered to take adequate care for the service of summons. “The attitude of the trial court is absolutely callous in nature and I am of the view that suitable directions shall be issued to curb such practice. This matter needs to be placed before the Hon'ble Administrative Judge of the concerned district for information and necessary action,” the Court said.It thus ordered the Registrar (Compliance) to place a copy of its order before the Administrative Judge of Siddharth Nagar district. .The Court was hearing a petition filed by the accused to quash the proceedings pending against them in the criminal case dating back to 2017. It was told the accused run a retail outlet of petrol lubricants and after an inspection was carried out of their premises in 2017, it was found that there was a short delivery of 50 ml out of 5 litres.The accused argued no offences were made out and that the trial court had failed to consider that no prima facie case was made out. However, the prosecution submitted that the accused had been rightly summoned..Considering the submissions, the Court said the arguments related the disputed question of fact which cannot be adjudicated upon by it under Section 482 of Code of Criminal Procedure.“The facts as alleged cannot be said that, prima facie, no offence is made out against the applicants. It is only after the evidence and trial, it can be seen as to whether the offence, as alleged, has been committed or not,” the Court said while dismissing the petition.Advocates Abhisek Rai, Hanuman Prasad Dube and Vipul Dube represented the petitioners.Advocate SD Pandey represented the State. [Read Judgment]