STATE OF GUJARAT Vs. BHARUCHA TEXTILE MILL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The State of Gujarat has come in Revision against the order passed below Exh. 101 in Essential Commodities Case No. 30 of 1988 on the file of the learned Special Judge, Bharuch passed by him on 9.10.1996.

(2.) It seems that the learned Additional Sessions Judge of Bharuch is the Designated Court under Essential Commodities Act for the purpose of trial of the offence punishable under Essential Commodities Act. In view of the provisions of Sec. 12-AA of the Essential Commodities Act, the Special Judge appointed under the said Act is empowered to try the accused by following the procedure of summary trial. It seems that in the said Special Case No. 30 of 1988, the evidence for the prosecution was recorded prior to July, 1996 and the matter was at the stage of recording statement of the accused under Sec. 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code and at that time, the said Special Judge was transferred and in his place, another Judge came and he was also designated as Special Judge for Essential Commodities Act. When the said matter came up before him, the learned Prosecutor gave an application Exh. 101 and requested the learned Judge to proceed further on the strength of the evidence recorded by his predecessor and he should not order a de novo trial. That application of the prosecution has been rejected. The accused had opposed the said claim of the prosecution. After rejecting the said application of the prosecution, the learned Special Judge had ordered to have a de novo trial and therefore, the State has come in Revision against the said order.

(3.) Admittedly, a Special Judge under Essential Commodities Act is empowered under the provisions of Sec. 12-AA of the Act to follow the procedure of summary trial. If the provisions of Sec. 12-AA are seen, men it would be quite clear that the said Special Court is also governed by the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure for the purpose of procedure for the trial. Sec. 260 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides the procedure for summary trial. As per the said provisions of Sec. 260, the evidence in the summary trial is to be recorded in the manner in which the evidence is recorded in summons cases. Sec. 274 of the Code of Criminal Procedure lays down the procedure for recording the evidence in a summons case. As per the said provision, as the examination of each witness proceeds the Magistrate is to prepare a memo of the substance of the evidence of the witnesses and he is not bound to record the evidence in verbatim. Therefore, when a trial of an offence in criminal case is held by following the summary procedure, then the evidence recorded in such a trial will be the evidence recorded in the manner proceeded by Sec. 274. Therefore, the evidence recorded by a Magistrate trying an accused in summary manner could not be said to be a record of the total disclosure of the evidence of the witnesses. Therefore, in these circumstances, if succeeding Judge/Magistrate feels that it would not be appropriate to put reliance on such notes of evidence and to have a de novo trial, it could not be said that such approach of a Judge/Magistrate is illegal or improper.