Order framing charges or refusing discharge not interlocutory order, not affected by bar under Section 397(2) CrPC: Supreme court

The Supreme Court on Friday held that an order by a lower court framing charges or refusing discharge is neither an interlocutory order nor a final order and is therefore subject to the revision powers of the High Court..Such an order framing charge or refusing discharge will not be affected by the bar of Section 397(2) of Code of Criminal Procedure, the Court ruled.“The correct position of law as laid down in Madhu Limaye (supra), thus, is that orders framing charges or refusing discharge are neither interlocutory nor final in nature and are therefore not affected by the bar of Section 397 (2) of CrPC,” the judgment said..The ruling was delivered by a Bench of Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Justices Surya Kant and Aniruddha Bose in an appeal against an order of the Allahabad High Court..By way of background, the appellant, a partner at a gas agency, was accused of threatening a journalist at The Pioneer newspaper.The journalist filed an application before the concerned Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) under Section 155 (2) CrPC for conducting investigation into the allegations. The court accordingly directed investigation and ordered the local police to submit the report..In July 2012, a charge sheet came to be filed against the appellant/accused under Sections 504 and 506 IPC based on the statement of complainant and the affidavits of two witnesses. However, the Investigating Officer did not deem it necessary to take the version of the appellant on record or consider his side of story also.The CJM took cognizance of the matter in November 2012. However, well before framing of the charges the appellant sought his discharge under Section 239 CrPC contending that the complainant falsely implicated him and the allegation of telephonic threats does not constitute an offence under Sections 504 and 506 of IPC..It was further submitted that the investigation was not fair and was unilateral in its approach wherein the investigating officer had made no efforts to find out the truth and had instead relied on the statement of the complainant and other planted witnesses to fasten a case against the appellant.The CJM did not agree with the appellant’s plea and rejected his discharge application.Aggrieved, the appellant approached the High Court through a Criminal Revision Petition, seeking reversal of CJM’s order..The High Court relying on the judgment of this Court in Asian Resurfacing of Road Agency Pvt. Ltd. v. Central Bureau of Investigation observed that interference in the order framing charges or refusing to discharge is called for in rarest of rare case only to correct the patent error of jurisdiction.Finding no such jurisdictional error in CJM’s order the Criminal Revision Petition was dismissed. This led to the appeal before Supreme Court..The Supreme Court noted that the High Court had dismissed the Criminal Revision on the ground of lack of jurisdiction under Section 397 of CrPC.The High Court did not examine the issue in detail to find out whether the continuation of proceedings will amount to abuse of process of law in this case, the top court noted.On High Court’s reliance on Asian Resurfacing, the Supreme Court opined that the High Court while limiting the scope of a criminal revision to jurisdictional errors alone, the High Court underappreciated the judgment in Asian Resurfacing..“We say so at least for two reasons. First, the material facts in the abovecited case dealt with a challenge to the charges framed under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 (POCA). The cited judgment itself enlightens that not only is POCA a special legislation, but also contains a specific bar under Section 19 against routine exercise of revisional jurisdiction. Second, this Court in Asian Resurfacing while expressing concern regarding the need to tackle rampant pendency and delays in our criminal law system, followed the ratio laid down in an earlier decision in Madhu Limaye v. State of Maharashtra,” the apex court observed..In Madhu Limaye, the top court had held that an order framing charge or refusing discharge may not operate as an interlocutory order and hence bar under Section 397(2) will not operate, the Supreme Court held.“That apart, this Court in the abovecited cases has unequivocally acknowledged that the High Court is imbued with inherent jurisdiction to prevent abuse of process or to secure ends of justice having regard to the facts and circumstance of individual cases,” the Court added.As a caveat it may be stated that the High Court, while exercising its aforestated jurisdiction ought to be circumspect and the discretion vested in the High Court is to be invoked carefully and judiciously for effective and timely administration of criminal justice system, the judgment said..This Court, nonetheless, does not recommend a complete hands-off approach. Albeit, there should be interference, may be, in exceptional cases, failing which there is likelihood of serious prejudice to the rights of a citizen.Further the Court also opined that the trial court while considering the discharge application is not to act as a mere post office.“The Court has to sift through the evidence in order to find out whether there are sufficient grounds to try the suspect. The court has to consider the broad probabilities, total effect of evidence and documents produced and the basic infirmities appearing in the case and so on,” the judgment said..The Court, therefore, ruled that High Court has committed jurisdictional error by not entertaining the revision petition on merits and overlooking the fact that ‘discharge’ is a valuable right provided to the accused.Hence, it remanded the matter back to the High Court for fresh consideration..[Read Judgment]