The trial court is competent to discharge an accused under s. 245 (2) even without recording any evidence, if the circumstances of the case disclose that no offence was made out or if the dispute is purely of a civil nature.

Surya Kumar Tiwari, J.

1. This petition has been filed for quashing the proceeding in Case No. C/129 of 1993 pending in the Court of3rd Metropolitan Magistrate, Calcutta.

2. The opposite party No.1 filed a complaint on behalf of Tata Iron and Steel Company (TISCO for short) alleging that the present petitioner being one of the Directors of M/s. B. Ghosh & Company Pvt. Ltd. claimed that his company is the local agent of M/s. F.C.L. Limited, London, who are Cargo Agents. The TISCO thereafter wrote to the petitioner's Company (B. Ghosh & Company) intimating the requirement of vessel for shipment of certain items to Turkey. The ship was to sail with Cargo from Paradip and the destination was Usunkum in the province of ZONGULDAK in Turkey.

3. A ship known as "M.V.G. DOST" was chartered by the petitioner company for the destination. But it was discovered that port is actually not located in Mediterranean Sea. TISCO had to enter into a fresh agreement with the Master of Ship upon payment of further charges for diverting the ship and taking the Cargo to the destination. Thus TISCO had to pay 90 per cent of additional freight on loading and 10 per cent upon discharge of Cargo.

4. The grievance of TISCO before the Id. Magistrate was that the present petitioner falsely represented that the vessel "M.V.G. DOST" was on time charter with F.C.I. Ltd. for TISCO. Besides taking some other Cargo only, some space was provided to TISCO. The company had to incur additional expenditure because of presence of other Cargo booked for another destination in the Mediterranean Sea. The amount realised as freight charges had been mis-appropriated by the present petitioner. The accused had forged the bill of lading issued by M/s. B. Ghosh & Company in order to make wrongful gain and thereby committed an offence punishable under Ss. 406 & 465 IPC.

5. The ld. Counsel for the petitioner has urged that instead of deciding this petition, the ld. Magistrate may be directed to dispose of the contentions raised In this petition in the light of the documents filed by the prosecution and also those filed by the petitioner in this case. According to Id. counsel for the petitioner, if the entire case is examined on the basis of all the documents filed by both the parties, the Id. Magistrate can come to a conclusion whether the case is of a purely civil nature or not.

6. It is no doubt true that in a recent judgment, the apex court (Satish Mehra vs. Delhi Administration (1996 (7) JT, page 6) held that "the object of providing such an opportunity as is envisaged in s. 227 of the Code is to enable the court to decide whether it is necessary to proceed to conduct the trial. If the case ends there it gains a lot of time of the court and saves much human efforts and cost. If the materials produced by the accused even at that early stage would clinch the issue, why should the court shut it out saying that such documents need be produced only after wasting a lot more time in the name of trial proceedings. Hence, we are of the view that Sessions Judge would be within his powers to consider even materials which the accused may produce at the stage contemplated in s. 227 of the Code. But when the Judge is fairly certain that there is no prospect of the case ending in conviction that valuable time of the court should not be wasted for holding a trial only for the purpose of formally completing the procedure to pronounce the conclusion on a future date. We are mindful that most the Sessions Courts in India are under heavy pressure of workload. If the Sessions Judge is almost certain that the trial would only be an exercise in futility or a sheer waste of time it is advisable to truncate or ship the proceedings at the stage of s. 227 of the Code itself."

7. I find that this being a complaint case, the trial court is competent to discharge an accused under s. 245 (2) even without recording any evidence, if the circumstances of the case disclose that no offence was made out or if