The main legal point established in the judgment is the requirement of sufficient grounds and prima facie evidence for framing charges against the accused at the stage of section 227 proceedings.

JUDGMENT

Amit Borkar, J. - Since the facts and the points involved are common, all the petitions are being disposed of by this common judgment.

2. All the petitions arise out of rejection of discharge application under section 227 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (hereafter 'CrPC', for short). The applicant in Revision Application No.331 of 2018 is accused no.2; petitioners in Criminal Writ petition No.2309 of 2018 are accused nos.1 and 3; applicant in Revision Application No.297 of 2018 is accused no.6; and the applicant in Revision Application No.342 of 2018 is accused no.4.

3. First Information Report (hereafter 'FIR', for short) came to be registered against accused persons mentioned above in relation to unfortunate incident took place on 28 April 2006 on the basis of information lodged by one Mr. Prakash Solanki, Fireman attached to Fire Brigade Department at Dadra and Nagar Haveli stating that fire brigade building near village Amli was under construction since two (2) months prior to the date of the report. The work of construction of the said building was assigned to accused no.1 and his brother accused no.2 who used to supervise the said construction work along with the officials of Public Works Department (hereafter 'PWD', for short).

4. On 28th April 2006, at 5.15 p.m. the informant heard loud noises and shouting of men from building no.2 which was under construction. He saw building collapsing and immediately informed the said fact to the Fire Station Officer, who came on the spot immediately. The IRBN staff, police and general public also rushed at the spot and started rescue work. Due to collapse of the building, men and women labourers doing construction work and their family members sustained injuries. They were sent to the Silvassa Government Civil Hospital for treatment. In the said unfortunate incident, four (4) labourer died on the spot and twenty (20) labourers sustained injuries. It is alleged in the FIR that the building collapse due to negligence and carelessness of PWD officials. The investigation commenced thereafter. During investigation, the death toll rose to six (6) and twenty-two (22) persons were injured.

5. The investigating agency registered offence under sections 304A, 288, 377, 378 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (hereafter 'IPC', for short). However, on 28 March 2008 the investigating agency registered offence under section 304 (II) instead of section 304A. After completion of investigation, charge-sheet came to be filed against the accused persons. In view of section 304(II) of IPC, case was committed to the Sessions Court.

6. The charge-sheet comprises of (i) statements of employees of Fire Brigade including first informant; (ii) scene of offence panchanama; (iii) inquest panchanama of dead body; (iv) panchanama of files pertaining to the construction work; (v) statements of eyewitnesses; and (vi) inquiry report dated 19 July 2006.

7. The applicants filed discharge application before the learned Sessions Judge, which came to be rejected by the impugned order.

8. Since pattern of submissions on behalf of the applicants is same, the submissions of the applicants are noted in common, which are as under:

(a) Charge-sheet does not make out offence under section 304 (II), 304A, 288, 337, 338 of IPC. The prosecution has not established prima facie case for proceeding against the accused persons to frame charge for the said offences;

(b) The learned Sessions Judge has committed error in rejecting the application for discharge, although, there was no evidence to prosecute the applicants for the alleged offence;

(c) No specific role was assigned to the applicants in the charge-sheet. According to the technical investigation report the reason for collapse of building was the faulty structural drawing given by accused no.5 of execution of work. The defective structural designs prepared by accused no.5 resulted in collapse of fire station building;

(d) The prosecution has not established nexus between the inci