The court emphasized that the High Court could not conduct a mini trial at the stage of framing of charges and that it is impossible to state at that stage that no case could possibly be made out for ultimate conviction of the accused.

ORDER

1. Leave granted.

2. Heard the learned Senior Counsel/Counsel for the parties.

3. The present case concerns itself with one out of six accused. In an incident which took place on 01.10.2016, the deceased was attacked by various persons who had swords, spears and rods, as a result of which he succumbed to his injuries. Admittedly, respondent no. 2 in this case was not mentioned in the FIR, nor did he take any part in beating or killing the deceased. The case against him, as put by four witnesses, is that the assailants came out of his house and beat up the deceased after which Respondent No. 2 had arranged for his vehicle for them to flee from the scene of the crime.

4. The trial Court, by its order dated 18.04.2017, framed charges against respondent no. 2 under Sections 323, 302, 307, 324, 326 read with 120B of the IPC and discharged him from the charges under Sections 147, 148 and 149 IPC.

5. Against this order, Criminal Revision Petitions were preferred to the High Court at Rajasthan at Jaipur which set out the fact that respondent no. 2 was implicated as aforesaid by at least four witnesses. But, thereafter, the High Court relied upon the statement of one Bhawani, who was a driver of respondent's brother-in-law, which statement, according to the High Court, showed that in point of fact the respondent no. 2 was really involved in taking the injured to the hospital. It further stated that criminal conspiracy required a prior meeting of minds, which is not clearly made out in the facts of the present case. Having so held, the High Court quashed all charges against the respondent no. 2

6. Learned counsel appearing for the Respondent took us through various witness statements to buttress his submission that all that could be said against respondent no. 2 was that, at the highest, he helped the assailants to flee from the scene of crime, and that, therefore, even prima facie no charge could be made out under the Sections under which he had been booked. He also added, relying upon some of our decisions, that when charges are framed against the accused it is important that the Court bears in mind the fact that there is a reasonable likelihood of ultimate conviction of the said accused.

7. On the other hand, Mr. Sidharth Luthra, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant, has pointed out various witness statements which show, at least prima facie, that the respondent no. 2, being father-in-law of one of the assailants, was hand in glove with the assailants, and helped them in fact to flee. All this would show, as the evidence in the trial would ultimately show, that there was a prior meeting of minds after the first incident, in which there was a free fight, after which the assailants came back armed with deadly weapons to beat up the deceased.

8. We are of the view that the High Court could not have conducted a mini trial at the stage of framing of charge, and that too in revision filed against the order framing charges.

9. We are of the view that it is impossible to state at this stage that no case could possibly be made out for ultimate conviction of the respondent no. 2.

10. This being the case, we set aside the judgment of the High Court and restore that of the trial Court.

11. The appeals are allowed in the aforesaid terms.

12. Consequent upon our order, the learned trial Judge is directed to frame charge under Section 120B against all the other accused.