Rajesh Kumar Mohapatra & Ors. vs State of Odisha

Dr. SanjeebK Panigrahi, J.

The Petitioner, in the present CRLMC, has assailed the 2^nd later order dated 18.02.2026 passed by the learned J.M.F.C. (O), Bhubaneswar in G.R. Case No.3246 of 2025 framing charge under Sections 303(2) / 3(5) of BNS, 2023 read with Rule-18 of the Odisha Minerals (Prevention of Theft, Smuggling and Illegal Mining and Regulation of Possession, Storage, Trading and Transportation) Rules, 2007 and Section-21 of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957.

The brief fact of the case, in nutshell, is that on 11.11.2025, Sri Managobinda Naik, Assistant Sub-Inspector of Police, Chandaka Police Station, lodged a written report alleging commission of offences under Sections 303(2) and 3(5) of the BNS, read with Rule 18 of the OMPTS Rules and Section 21 of the MMDR Act. Pursuant to the said written report Chandaka P.S. Case No.512 of 2025 was registered on 12.11.2025.

The Petitioners were arrested on 12.11.2025 and were enlarged on bail vide order dated 17.11.2025 passed by the learned J.M.F.C. (O), Bhubaneswar. On completion of investigation, charge-sheet dated 29.12.2025 was submitted against the Petitioners for the aforesaid offences. Learned J.M.F.C.(O), Bhubaneswar took cognizance of the aforesaid offences vide order dated 3l.12.2025.

On 18.02.2026, the Petitioners appeared before the learned J.M.F.C. (O), Bhubaneswar, they were furnished with the police papers and, vide the impugned second later order passed on the same date, charges were framed under Sections 303(2) and 3(5) of the BNS, read with Rule-18 of the OMPTS Rules and Section 21 of the MMDR Act. It is stated that the Petitioners' applications for discharge were subsequently rejected vide order dated 23.06.2026.

Being aggrieved, the Petitioners have preferred the present CRLMC.

Learned counsel for the Petitioners earnestly made the following submissions in support of his contentions:

ii) Section-230 of BNSS, 2023 reads as follows:

iii) Section-262 of BNSS, 2023 reads as follows:

iv) A bare reading of Sub-Section (1) of Seetion-262 of BNSS, 2023 makes it clear that the accused person has been empowered by the Parliament to file an application for discharge within a period of sixty (60) days from the date of supply of copies of documents under Section 230 of BNSS, 2023.

vi) A bare reading of the three orders passed on 18.02.2026, clearly goes to show that a statutory right conferred upon the accused persons by the Parliament by the enactment of Section - 262(1) of BNSS, 2023 has been denied / curtailed by the learned trial Court by framing charge on the date of supply of Police Papers i.e. on 18.02.2026.

vii) It is well settled principles of law that if a statute provides a thing to be done in a particular manner, the same has to be done in the manner provided or not at all and other modes of performance are forbidden. In the instant case, when the statute i.e. Sub-section (1) of Section 262 of BNSS, 2023 authorizes the accused persons for filing of application for discharge within a period of sixty (60) days from the date of supply of copies of Police Papers. The said statutory right granted to the accused persons have been curtailed / denied by the learned trial Court vide 2^nd later Order dated 18.02.2026. Such fact clearly goes to show that the learned trial Court is pre-determined to convict the present Petitioners.

viii) It was, therefore, contended that the impugned 2^nd later order may be quashed allowing the present CRLMC.

On the contrary, the Learned Counsel for the Opposite Party made the following submissions in support of his contentions:

Heard learned counsel for the Petitioners and learned counsel for the Opposite Party at length. Perused the CRLMC, the impugned orders dated 18.02.2026 and the subsequent order dated 23.06.2026 rejecting the discharge applications, together with the relevant statutory provisions.

The controversy raised before this Court, though narrow in compass, requires a careful and purposive reading of the newly-minted procedural architecture under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023. The question is not whether the Petitioners are entitled to a discharge on merits which has already been answered against them by the trial Court. However, is the manner in which charge came to be framed, namely on the very date on which police papers were furnished, is so fatal to the proceeding which has the propensity to vitiate the charge itself. It is a question, in essence, of form versus substance and this Court must resist the temptation to allow the former to swallow the latter.

Section 230 of the BNSS casts a mandatory obligation upon the Magistrate to furnish the accused, without delay, copies of the police report and connected documents, in no case to be supplied beyond fourteen days from appearance. Section 262(1), a provision without direct analogue in the erstwhile Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, confers upon the accused a distinct and calibrated right for moving an application for discharge within sixty days from the date of such supply. This is a novel legislative innovation, and its purpose is not difficult to discern as it is intended to arm the accused with a real and meaningful opportunity, unhurried by the tyranny of the cause-list, to scrutinize the police report and persuade the Court that the charge against him is groundless before the heavier machinery of trial is set into motion.

Learned counsel for the Petitioners also heavily relied on Section 262(1) which erects an inviolable procedural wall which charge cannot, in law, be framed on the same date as supply of documents and any departure therefrom renders the framing of charge void ab initio. This submission has been attractively canvassed by the petitioner which proceeds upon a conflation of two distinct concepts that is the existence of a statutory right and the consequence of its premature curtailment. Not every procedural misstep translates, ipso facto, into a nullity of the proceedings. The touchstone, as this Court has consistently held and as the Hon'ble Supreme Court has reiterated in a long line of authorities’ pronouncements in State of Punjab v. Jagir Singh^{11.1974 3 SCC 277} and running through Rafiq Ahmed v. State of U.P^{22.2011 (8) SCC 300}., is one of prejudice. A departure from procedure, even a departure from a provision cast in seemingly mandatory language, does not vitiate a proceeding unless it is shown that the departure has occasioned real, demonstrable prejudice which the accused has, in fact, been denied a fair opportunity to defend himself, and not merely a theoretical or formal one. The plea of prejudice has to be in relation to investigation or trial and not matters falling beyond their scope. Once the accused is able to show that there is serious prejudice to either of these aspects and that the same has defeated the rights available to him under the criminal jurisprudence, then the accused can seek benefit under the orders of the Court.

Tested on this anvil, the Petitioners' grievance withers. It is not the Petitioners' case that they sought time before the trial Court to file an application for discharge and that such request was spurned. Nor is it their case that, upon framing of charge, the door to discharge was closed upon them. To the contrary, and rather tellingly, the record itself discloses that the Petitioners did, in the fullness of time, file applications for discharge, and that the learned trial Court entertained the same on merits and rejected them by a reasoned vide order dated 23.06.2026. The statutory right under Section 262(1), far from having been extinguished, was exercised, examined, and adjudicated upon. What the Petitioners seek, in truth, is not the vindication of a right denied, but the resurrection of a formality already overtaken by events which can be put like, a bell, once rung, cannot be unrung, and a right once exercised cannot, in the same breath, be complained of as having been foreclosed.

This Court is also not unmindful of the architecture of the BNSS as a whole, which is animated by the object of expeditious and time-bound disposal of criminal trials which is a legislative response to the chronic malady of docket congestion that has long afflicted the criminal justice system. To read Section 262(1) as imposing and rigid, non-negotiable sixty-day moratorium before which charge cannot be framed, regardless of whether the accused has invoked or intends to invoke that right, would be to convert a provision designed as a shield for the accused into a sword against the very object of the Sanhita, that is, the timely trial. Such a construction would also open the floodgates to a wave of technical challenges devoid of any substantive grievance, converting Section 262(1) from a right of opportunity into an instrument of delay which the Legislature could scarcely have intended.

In fact, this Court will remiss if it does not observe that the better and more prudent practice which the trial Courts across the State will do well to internalize that is to allow a reasonable interval to elapse between the supply of police papers under Section 230 and the framing of charge, so as to give true and unhindered effect to the right conferred under Section 262(1), rather than compressing both into the same date as a matter of administrative convenience. Justice, it is often said, must not only be done but must also appear to be done. Procedural symmetry, even where it does not affect the ultimate outcome, lends legitimacy and confidence to the process. The learned trial Court would have been better served by granting the Petitioners the space contemplated by the statute, rather than exposing its order to the very challenge that has now consumed the valuable time of this Court.

Nonetheless, an irregularity in procedure, unaccompanied by prejudice and cured by subsequent compliance which has been demonstrably occurred here. However, it furnishes no ground for this Court to exercise its extraordinary inherent jurisdiction under Section 528 of the BNSS to quash an otherwise validly framed charge. The inherent jurisdiction of this Court is not a springboard for technical objections, it is reserved for the correction of manifest injustice or abuse of process or procedural prejudice, none of which has been demonstrated in the facts of the present case.

For the reasons aforestated, this Court is of the considered view that the impugned order dated 18.02.2026 framing charge against the Petitioners does not suffer from any illegality warranting interference under the inherent jurisdiction of this Court, particularly in view of the fact that the Petitioners' statutory right under Section 262(1) of the BNSS, 2023 was, in fact, subsequently exercised and adjudicated upon by the learned trial Court vide order dated 23.06.2026, without any demonstratable prejudice.

Accordingly, the CRLMC, being devoid of merit, stands dismissed.

However, the observations made in paragraph 14 above are placed on record as a word of caution for the guidance of the trial Courts in the State, so that the salutary object underlying Section 262(1) of the BNSS, 2023 is not reduced to an empty formality in future proceedings.

It is made clear that this Court has not expressed, and shall not be understood to have expressed, any opinion on the merits of the charge framed against the Petitioners or the correctness of the order dated 23.06.2026 rejecting the discharge applications, both of which shall abide their own course, if further assailed, in accordance with law.

The CRLMC is disposed of accordingly. Pending applications, if any, also stand disposed of. No order as to costs.

Interim order, if any, passed earlier stands vacated.