Urmil Khanna vs Rakesh Sharma And Another

Anoop Chitkara, J

Aggrieved by the nature of order passed by learned Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Court No.V, Shimla, the petitioner has come up before this Court.

I have heard learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the record with utmost care.

The grievance of the petitioner is that she has filed a complaint under Section 340 read with Section 195 of Cr.P.C. In such complaint, there is no

provision to take reply of the accused. Despite that, the concerned Judicial Magistrate vide order dated 24th December, 2020, granted them time to file

reply. Subsequently filing of the reply is also reflected in the order dated 31 st December, 2020.

Mr. Subhash Sharma, learned counsel for the petitioner, submitted that in proceedings under Section 340 of Cr.P.C., there is no legal provision for

filing of the reply. On the contrary, Mr. Sanjeev Bhushan, learned Senior Advocate, appearing on behalf of respondent No.1, submitted that in case

law prohibits filing of reply, then let them make legal arguments to that effect before the Court and subject to outcome of such arguments, let the trial

Court take conscious decision that whether reply could have been filed or not.

Given above, this petition is closed with the observation that before the learned Magistrate considers the reply filed by the respondent, she will have

to give legal reasons whether such reply could have been filed and whether it could have been considered under Section 340 of Cr.P.C. In case,

learned Magistrate is of the opinion that it could have been done, then it will be open for her to consider the reply and in case in the opinion of the

learned Magistrate, she could not have considered the contents of the reply, then she would simply ignore. Record is returned.

These observations shall not have any bearing on the adjudication of any proceedings.

The petition stands disposed of in the above terms, so also the pending miscellaneous application(s), if any.