important Point
Well settled that at the stage of framing of charge, the Court will not weigh the evidence.

judgment

S.B. Sinha, J. —

1.Leave granted.

2. Appellant is an IPS Officer of 1971 batch of the West Bengal cadre. He joined the Central Coalfields Ltd., a Government Company as a Chief Vigilance Officer on deputation. He was re-designated as Executive Director (Vigilance).

A raid was conducted by the CBI Officials at his residence in the night of 30/31.8.1992, pursuant whereto, a first information report was lodged. A charge sheet was filed in the said case against him on or about 18.6.1997. Appellant filed an application inter alia for supply of the copies of item Nos. 1 and 20 of the documents mentioned in the said charge sheet. The same was not issued to him. Several contentions in regard thereto were raised. He moved the High Court in revision which was marked as Criminal Revision No. 90 of 1999

3.By an order dated 20.4.2001, a learned Single Judge of the High Court directed supply of the said documents to the petitioner, stating :

“16.Various points were raised on behalf of both sides but it is unnecessary to enter into all those points on merit at this stage as I find that the order passed by the learned Special Judge has got to be set aside and thus it would be appropriate to remit the matter back to the court below leaving it open to the parties to raise their respective contentions before the learned Special Judge, C.B.I. and the learned Special Judge, C.B.I., Ranchi is directed to furnish the copies of Item Nos. 1 and 20 of the Search List to the accused/petitioner and those documents may also be taken into consideration along with other documents placed by the C.B.I. while passing the order on the matter of discharge.”

4.Appellant filed an application for his discharge inter alia on the premise that no case for framing of charge has been made out. He, furthermore, filed some documents in his own defence. The said application for discharge was rejected by the learned Special Judge, CBI, opining that the documents relied on by the appellant cannot be looked into for the purpose of passing an order on his application for discharge. Revision Application filed by the appellant thereagainst under Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been dismissed by the High Court by reason of the impugned judgment.

5.Appellant admittedly, is facing trial for an alleged commission of an offence under Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1998.

Allegations against the appellant are that he was found to be in possession of assets more than his known source of income.

The question is as to whether any documents, whereupon the appellant may rely upon in support of his defence, can be looked into at the stage of framing of the charge.

6.Mr. Saurabh Mishra, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant would submit that keeping in view the order passed by the High Court on 20.4.2001 in Criminal Revision No. 90 of 1999, it is evident that Central Bureau of Investigation itself has seized the said documents from the residence of the appellant and in that view of the matter, he could rely thereupon.

7.Mr. B.B. Singh, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the State, on the other hand, would submit that from a perusal of the order passed by the learned Special Judge, it would be evident that the appellant intended to rely upon some documents which were filed before the learned Special Judge for the first time, the impugned judgment should not be interfered with.

8.It is beyond any doubt or dispute that at the stage of framing of charge, the Court will not weigh the evidence. The stage for appreciating the evidence for the purpose of arriving at a conclusion as to whether the prosecution was able to bring home the charge against the accused or not would arise only after all the evidences are brought on records at the trial.

The documents whereupon the appellant intended to rely upon were :

(i) an order of assessment passed by the Income Tax Authority and (ii) his declaration of assets.

9.It