LAWS(ORI)-2000-12-44

SUBASH CHANDRA MISHRA Vs. REPUBLIC OF INDIA

Decided On December 04, 2000
SUBASH CHANDRA MISHRA Appellant
V/S
REPUBLIC OF INDIA Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision application is directed against the order dated 3-5-2000 passed by the Addl. Chief Judicial Magistrate, C.B.I., Bhubaneswar, in S. P. E. Case No. 4 of 1997 rejecting petitioner's application to discharge him from the charges framed against him under Sections 498-A and 506, I.P.C. read with Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act.

(2.) The petitioner challenges the impugned order on the ground that the charge-sheet so submitted and the materials presented before the Court, if taken in their entirety, would go to show that no case has been made out against the petitioner and the allegation of the prosecution is inherently improbable. In this case, notice having been issued on 12-7-2000, Shri Sanjit Mohanty entered appearance on behalf of the opposite party-C.B.I. Thereafter on 23-8-2000 Smt. Anjana Mishra, the informant and the wife of the accused-petitioner, filed a petition for intervention (Misc. Case No. 685 of 2000) which was allowed on 19-9-2000 and she has been impleaded as opposite party No. 2. On the same day a joint application was also filed being sworn to by both the petitioner and his wife, Smt. Anjana Mishra, with a prayer to quash the proceeding initiated in S.P.E. Case No. 4 of 1997 to which a counter-affidavit has also been filed on behalf of the C.B.I.

(3.) It is profitable to state here the brief facts ultimately leading to this revision application.An F.I.R. was lodged by Smt. Anjana Mishra on 29-5-1997 against the petitioner alleging demand of dowry and torture, which was registered as Bidanasi P. S. Case No. 64 of 1997, and the then D.I.G., Central Range, took up the investigation. A writ petition was filed by the present petitioner being O.J.C. No. 8296 of 1997 with a prayer to change the hands of the investigation but ultimately this Court entrusted the investigation of the case to the C.B.I. Though initially allegations were made against Smt. Rajalaxmi Mishra @ Jyoti Mishra (brother's wife of the petitioner) and Shri Biswanath Hota (sister's husband of the petitioner), after investigation, the C.B.I. filed charge-sheet only against the petitioner under Ss. 506 and 498-A, I.P.C. read with Section 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act. The other persons so named in the F.I.R. were not charge-sheeted. The petitioner filed an application before the trial Court to discharge him from the charges framed against him but the same was rejected.