AI Structured Summary
Not yet generated for this judgment
Judgment
V. Jagannathan, J.—These two revision petitions are directed against the order of the trial court declining to discharge the Petitioner and ordering change to be framed in respect of the offences punishable under Sections 323, 342, 504 & 506(2) of Indian Penal Code.
The case of the complainant is that, the complainant was a lover of snakes and on coming to know of the presence of two cobras putting eggs in forest land, he brought the same to the notice of the Petitioner Shivaraj Singh and the said Petitioner along with other forest officials went to the spot and the complainant in the meanwhile took 32 eggs to his house to give them protection and the accused persons visited the house of the complainant and thereafter, the complainant was taken to the forest guest house and there, the complainant was assaulted with wooden sticks.
The complaint filed by the complainant led to the police filing of the ''B'' report and the learned trial Judge thereafter recorded the statement of the complainant and was satisfied that there is material to proceed against the Petitioner and therefore, the application for discharge was rejected.
Submission of the learned Counsel for the Petitioner is that there is lot of delay in filing the compliant, because the alleged incident took place on 05.06.2001, whereas, the complaint was actually lodged on 02.07.2001 and secondly, No. sanction was obtained before prosecuting the Petitioner. Therefore, relying on the Apex Court''s decision reported in Bhoop Singh Vs. Union of India and others, it is argued that inordinate delay would be a serious infirmity in the prosecution case. On these grounds, learned Counsel sought for the order of the trial court be set aside.
On the other hand, submission of the learned Counsel for the Respondent-complainant is that the trial court after considering the statement of PW-1 was satisfied that there to material to proceed against the Petitioner and therefore, this Court cannot interfere with the trial court''s order. As far as delay is concerned, submission made is that it is a matter of evidence and whether the delay to nearly fetal or not, it is to be seen only after the evidence is recorded by the trial court. As far as necessity for sanction is concerned, learned Counsel for the Respondent-complainant referred to the Apex Court''s decision in the case of Bakhshish Singh Brar Vs. Gurmej Kaur and Another, ) and argued that the Apex Court has observed in the said case that criminal trials should not be stayed in all cases at the preliminary stage because that will cause great damage to the evidence and secondly, it is argued by him that whether the Petitioner had exceed his limit as a public servant is also a matter to be considered by the trial court and therefore, merely because the Petitioner happened to be a public servant it will not ipso-facto lead to the conclusion that sanction is a must before prosecuting the Petitioner.
Having thus heard both sides, particularly taking note of the observations made by the Apex Court in the case reported in Bakhshish Singh Brar Vs. Gurmej Kaur and Another, and the trial court taking note of the statement of PW-1 that the complainant was assaulted by the Petitioner with a stick, in my view, it is for the trial court to examine the evidence with regard to both the grounds now put forward by the learned Counsel for the Petitioner and at this stage, this Court does not find any good reason to interfere with the order of the trial court.
Both the petitions are rejected, but it is made clear that the above observations shall not have any impact on the merits of the case. Petitioner is at liberty to urge his contentions now put forward before the trial court namely, the ground of delay and want of sanction.