Leonard Xavier Valdaris vs Jitendra Ramnayaran Rathod

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2024 Supreme(SC) 387

SANJIV KHANNA, DIPANKAR DATTA
Leonard Xavier Valdaris – Appellant
Versus
Jitendra Ramnayaran Rathod – Respondent

Advocates appeared:
For the Petitioner(s): Ms. Payoshi Roy, Adv. Mr. S. Prabu Ramasubramanian, Adv. Mr. Raghunatha Sethupathy B, AOR Mr. Bharathimohan M, Adv. Mr. Avinash Kumar, Adv.
For the Respondent(s): Mr. Rizwan Merchant, Adv. Mrs. Yugandhara Pawar Jha, AOR Mr. Kunal Verma, Adv. Mr. Sultan Khan, Adv. Mr. Sagar Shete, Adv. Ms. Lavanya Dhawan, Adv. Mr. Shivraj Pawar, Adv. Mr. Shrirang B. Varma, Adv. Mr. Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Adv. Mr. Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, AOR Mr. Bharat Bagla, Adv. Mr. Sourav Singh, Adv. Mr. Aditya Krishna, Adv. Ms. Preet S. Phanse, Adv. Mr. Adarsh Dubey, Adv. Ms. Nidhi Khanna, Adv. Ms. Vimla Sinha, Adv. Mr. Sanjay Kr. Tyagi, Adv. Ms. Harshita Raghuvanshi, Adv. Mr. Pratyush Shrivastav, Adv. Ms. Aarushi Singh, Adv.

ORDER :

1. Leave granted.

2. A peculiar situation has arisen. A Single Judge of the High Court in Criminal Writ Petition No.4104/2022 titled as “Archana Maruti Pujari & Ors. v. Central Bureau of Investigation & Ors.” decided on 16.12.2022, had upheld the order passed by the Special Judge framing charge under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC). The order/judgment dated 16.12.2022 was not challenged and has attained finality.

3. By the impugned judgment/order dated 20.4.2023 in Criminal Writ Petition No.4451/2022 titled “Jitendra Ramnarayan Rathod v. Central Bureau of Investigation & Ors.” another Single Judge of the High Court disagreed with the view expressed in the judgment/order dated 16.12.2022 and has directed that the charge under Section 302 of IPC should not be framed.

4. This leads to an incongruous situation where, in the same set of facts and one trial, there are two conflicting orders, one rejecting the challenge to framing of charge under Section 302 of IPC and other directing that the charge under Section 302 of IPC should not be framed.

5. In our opinion, once the Single Judge, while deciding Criminal Writ Petition No. 4451/2022 formed an opinion that the jud

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2024 Supreme(SC) 387

SANJIV KHANNA, DIPANKAR DATTALeonard Xavier Valdaris – AppellantVersusJitendra Ramnayaran Rathod – Respondent

Cases Referred (3)

SANJIV KHANNA, DIPANKAR DATTA
Leonard Xavier Valdaris – Appellant
Versus
Jitendra Ramnayaran Rathod – Respondent