Karan Deep Singh vs State Of Telangana And Another

The petitioners are accused questioning the correctness of the order of the learned Principal Junior Civil Judge-cum-VIII Additional Metropolitan Magistrate, Cyberabad at Kukatpally in allowing petition under Section 311 of Cr.P.C permitting the prosecution to reopen the evidence of P.W.1 and examine her for marking a CD, which is also certified under Section 65-B of the Indian Evidence Act vide order dated 27.06.2022 in Crl.M.P.No.919 of 2022 in CC No.751 of 2014.

The defacto complainant filed Section 311 Cr.P.C application for marking a CD which contains the details of A1 in various websites to show that A1 mentioned his marital status as separated.

Learned Magistrate allowed the petition for providing equal opportunity to produce evidence.

Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner/accused would submit that the learned Magistrate has allowed the petition without giving any reasons and further the I.O has not collected any such information. The prosecution cannot be permitted to introduce documents which were not collected during investigation.

On the other hand, learned counsel appearing for the 2nd respondent/defacto complainant submits that petition was rightly allowed and the Hon’ble Supreme court in the case of Rajaram Prasad Yadav v. State of Bihar and others [AIR 2013 SC 3081] held that if the evidence of any witness appears to the Court to be essential to the decision of the case, the Court can recall and re-examine any such person. Such exercise of power under Section 311 of Cr.P.C should be resorted to only with the object of finding out the truth or obtaining proper proof for such facts. Though the discretionary power is wide, it should not be exercised arbitrarily.

As seen from the order of the learned Magistrate, no reasons are given as to how the marking of the CD in any manner advance the case of the prosecution or how the evidence would determine the allegations made against the 1st petitioner.

In the absence of any evidence that would in turn enable the Court to ascertain the correctness or otherwise of the allegations made against the accused, such evidence is of no consequence and would only burden the Court record.

The evidence sought to be marked in the form of CD contains details of A1 mentioning that he has mentioned his marital status as separated in certain websites. It is for the said websites to provide CDs certifying that such information was in fact provided by A1. Merely marking the CD would not in any manner prove the contents therein.

The case is of the year 2014 and the present application is filed after eight years. Since there are no reasons given for producing the evidence at such belated stage and also for the reason of this Court finding that merely marking of the said CD will be of no consequence, the present petition succeeds and the order of the learned Magistrate dated 27.06.2022 in Crl.M.P.No.919 of 2022 in CC No.751 of 2014 is hereby set aside. Needless to state that the learned Magistrate shall conclude the proceedings expeditiously as the case is of the year 2014.

Accordingly, the Criminal Petition is allowed.

Miscellaneous applications, if any pending, shall stand closed.