STATE OF M P Vs. GANESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by the State under Section 378 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter to be referred to as the Code) challenging the Order of acquittal passed by Shri M. K. Saini, Judicial Magistrate First Class, Burhanpur on 12-2-1999 in Criminal Case No. 384 of 1996.

(2.) THE charge-sheet as per Section 173 of the Code was submitted by the police on 17-4-1996. Charge under Section 324 I. P. C. was framed on 2-11-1996 against accused Ganesh for voluntarily causing hurt to Bhaulal by a sharp weapon. He pleaded not guilty. The case was fixed for evidence on 10-2-1997 and the Magistrate directed that the summons be issued to the prosecution witnesses. The same Order was repeated on 10-2-1997,13-5-1997, 20-10-1997 and 21-7-1998 as the summons were not issued. The summons were issued for the first time on 11-1-1999. The case was fixed on 12-2-1999 for evidence. On that date five prosecution witnesses including complainant Bhaulal were present. The case was taken up at 4. 55 P. M. . The learned defence counsel submitted that it would not be possible for the Court to record evidence on that day. The prosecutor submitted an application requesting the Court to record the evidence on that day or to fix another date for examination of the witnesses who were present. The Court declined to do so and relying upon the decision of the Supreme Court in Rajdeo Sharma v. State of Bihar, AIR 1998 S. C. 3281 closed the evidence and acquitted the accused on the same date.

(3.) AFTER hearing the learned counsel for both the sides this Court is of the opinion that the learned Magistrate has mis-construed the ratio of the decision of the Supreme Court in Rajdeo Sharma 's case. The Supreme Court in this case for effective enforcement of the right to speedy trial flowing from Article 21 of the Constitution of India gave certain directions. The relevant direction for the present purpose was (1) in cases where the trial is for an offence punishable with imprisonment for a period not exceeding seven years, whether the accused is in jail or not, the Court shall close prosecution evidence on completion of a period of two years from the date of recording the plea of the accused on the charges framed whether prosecution has examined all the witnesses or no within the said period and the Court can proceed to the next step provided by law for the trial of the case. The Supreme Court has clarified in Rajdeo Sharma v. State of Bihar, 1999 Cr. L. J. 4541 that the whole idea was to speed up the trial in criminal cases to prevent the prosecution from becoming a persecution of the person arrayed in a criminal trial. No trial can be allowed to prolong indefinitely "due to the lethargy of the prosecuting agency or the State machinery" and that is the raison d'etre in prescribing the time frame with which the prosecution evidence must be closed. It has been further clarified that the power of the Court as envisaged in Section 311 of the Code has not been curtailed by the Supreme Court. Neither in the decision of the seven-Judge Bench in A. R. Antulay's case AIR 1992 S. C. 1701 nor in Kartar Singh's case 1994 Cr. L. J. 3139 such power has been restricted for achieving speedy trial. In other words, even if the prosecution evidence is closed in compliance with the directions contained in the main judgment it is still open to the prosecution to invoke the powers of the Court under Section 311 of the Code. The Supreme Court further observed : "we make it clear that if evidence of any witness appears to the Court to be essential to the just decision of the case it is the duty of the Court to summon and examine or recall and re-examine any such person".