RAVINDRA TIWARI Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as "the Code") involves determination of an important issue relating to scope and ambit of provision contained in Section 210 of the Code. The question which arises for consideration is whether in a contingency where the police report in respect of an offence has been filed and cognizance taken by the Magistrate and then committed for trial, it being a case of offence exclusively triable by the Court of Session, filing of a complaint subsequent thereto in respect of the same offence, provision contained in Section 210 of the Code would be attracted to mandate stay of trial? Quintessential facts, as glean from the record of the case, are that on the allegation of commission of offence under Section 306 read with Section 34 of the IPC, crime under Crime No. 308/2010 was registered by Police Station Dongargarh. The investigation was carried out and upon completion of investigation, charge-sheet under Section 173 of the Code was submitted before the Judicial Magistrate First Class Dongargarh by the police. The substance of allegation, as reflected from the final report, are that the deceased Brijesh Tiwari had an affair with one Bhavna Shrivastava and both of them fled away to Mahasamund and returned after 15 days. Thereafter, Brijesh Tiwari and Bhavna were living in their respective home, but, accused - Vijay Mishra, Chandrakant alias Tinku Meshram and Rahul Pandey started intimidating Brijesh and forced him to bring to an end his relation with Bhavna. It is alleged that harassed by such threat by the three accused, Brijesh committed suicide by consuming poison. The Magistrate having taken cognizance and found that offence is exclusively triable by the Court of Session, committed the case for trial to the Sessions Court, leading to registration of Sessions Trial No. 3/10 (State of Chhattisgarh v. Chandrakant alias Tinku Meshram & Ors. ).

(2.) When the matter stood thus, the petitioner, who is the brother of deceased Brijesh, filed a complaint before the Judicial Magistrate-Dongargarh against three accused of S. T. No. 3/10 as also against - Rajkumar Thuthawa, Krishna Shrivastava, Govind Shrivastava and Ravi Shrivastava, alleging commission of offence under Sections 302, 34, 120B of the IPC. According to the complainant/petitioner herein, though report was lodged alleging murder of Brijesh, against all the accused stated in the complaint, police did not carry out proper investigation and it registered offence only against three persons namely - Chandrakant alias Tinku, Rahul and Vijay Kumar Mishra and submitted charge-sheet alleging commission of offence under Sections 306, 34 of the IPC only, whereas, according to the petitioner, the accused stated in the complaint are guilty of having committed murder of Brijesh. The Judicial Magistrate proceeded to examine the complaint on oath and recorded preliminary statements of complainant's witnesses.

(3.) At this stage, the petitioner filed two applications in the pending sessions trial, one being an application under Sections 301(2) & 302 of the Code and other being an application purporting to be under Section 120 of the Code. Both the applications were decided by the Sessions Judge vide its order dated 2-8-2011. While the application under Section 301(2) of the Code was allowed, the petitioner's application under Section 210 of the Code was rejected by stating that there are no sufficient grounds to stay the proceedings. Prayer of the petitioner is that the complaint has been filed in respect of the same incident arising out of which sessions trial is pending, therefore, the trial should be stayed, otherwise in respect of the same incident, eventuality may arise to subject the accused to two cases arising out of the same incident and allegation.