IMPORTANT POINT
Trial court is obliged to ensure service of summons to the witnesses cited and their production.
If material witnesses are not examined, prosecution should not be allowed to close the evidence.

JUDGMENT

Dipak Misra, J.

The pivotal issues, quite disturbing and disquieting, that emanate in this appeal by special leave for scrutiny, deliberation and apposite delineation, fundamentally pertain to the role of the prosecution and the duty of the court within the requisite paradigm of fair trial which in the ultimate conceptual eventuality results in appropriate stability of criminal justice dispensation system. The attitude of callousness and non-chalance portrayed by the prosecution and the total indifferent disposition exhibited by the learned trial Judge in shutting out the evidence and closing the trial after examining a singular formal witness, PW 1, in a trial where the accused persons were facing accusations for the offences punishable under Sections 147, 148, 149, 341, 342 and 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which entailed an acquittal under Section 232 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC), are really disconcerting; and indubitably cause discomfort to the judicial conscience. It seems that everyone concerned with the trial has treated it as a farce where the principal protagonists compete with each other for gaining supremacy in the race of closing the case unceremoniously, burying the basic tenets of fair trial, and abandoning one’s duty to serve the cause of justice devoutly. It is a case where the prosecution has played truant and the learned trial Judge, with apathy, has exhibited impatience. Fortunately, the damage done by the trial court has been rectified by the High Court in exercise of the revisional jurisdiction under Section 401 CrPC; but what is redemption for the conception of the fair trial has caused dissatisfaction to the accused persons, for they do not intend to face the retrial. It is because at one point of time, the High Court had directed for finalization of trial within a fixed duration and the learned trial Judge, in all possibility, harboured the impression that even if the prosecution witnesses had not been served the notice to depose in court, and the prosecution had not taken any affirmative steps to make them available for adducing evidence in court, yet he must conclude the trial by the target date as if it is a mechanical and routine act. The learned trial Judge, as it appears to us, has totally forgotten that he could have asked for extension of time from the High Court, for the High Court, and we are totally convinced, could never have meant to conclude the trial either at the pleasure of the prosecution or desire of the accused.

2. The sad scenario has to have a narration. The informant lodged an FIR on 29.11.2004 at Tikari Police Station about 8.00 p.m. that the accused persons came armed with various weapons, took away her husband Brahamdeo Yadav, the deceased, and threatened the family members not to come out from their house. The deceased was taken towards the house of Krishna Yadav and next morning he was found dead having several wounds. It was mentioned in the FIR that the occurrence had taken place as the family of the informant and the accused persons were in litigating terms. On the basis of the FIR, criminal law was set in motion and eventually, the investigating agency submitted the charge-sheet for the offences which we have already mentioned hereinbefore. After the accused persons were sent up for trial, charges were framed on 10.8.2007. Be it noted, the appellants in this case were tried as accused in Session Trial No. 350/2006 and trial of different accused-persons had been split up. It is apt to mention here that applications for grant of bail were preferred by certain accused persons before the High Court and the High Court by order dated 17.07.2007, while declining to admit the accused persons to bail, directed that the trial should be concluded as early as possible and in any case within nine months from the date of receipt/production of the copy of the order passed by the High Court. After the charges were framed, the learned trial Judge, that is, Ad