The court ruled that orders affecting fundamental rights to evidence and witness presentation can be deemed intermediate and are amenable to revisional scrutiny under the Code of Criminal Procedure.

JUDGMENT : 

UDAY KUMAR, J.

1) This revisional application, filed under Sections 482, 401, read with Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as "the Cr.P.C ."), has been preferred by the petitioner and de-facto complainant, Smt. Ananya Nandi Mukherjee, seeking to rectify a grave injustice and a demonstrable abuse of the judicial process, by setting aside two patently erroneous orders passed on March 11, 2024, and March 13, 2024, in connection with G.R. Case No. 552 of 2023 by the Learned Judicial Magistrate, 4th Court, Durgapur. The petitioner asserted, with compelling force, that these orders had gravely prejudiced her case by impeding her ability to present crucial evidence and a vital witness, thereby warranting the invocation of this Court’s inherent and revisional jurisdiction.

2) The foundational facts, as they emerge from the record, reveal deeply acrimonious marital relationship. The petitioner had lodged a complaint against her estranged husband, Sri Subhajit Mukherjee, leading to the initiation of Durgapur Women P.S. Case No. 17/23 under Sections 448, 323, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code. It is also pertinent to note an earlier instance of discord, which had resulted in Kanksa P.S. Case No. 360/21, lodged by the petitioner under Section 498A IPC, alleging a history of physical and mental cruelty.

3) Subsequently, the respondent-husband had visited the petitioner's residence and, in a shocking act, assaulted her, despite they were residing separately since long. This incident, demonstrably captured on CCTV footage. Petitioner was intended to adduced the incident in evidence through a pen drive containing said CCTV footage. However, when the petitioner's counsel moved an application for its admission, the Learned Magistrate, instead of rendering a judicial determination on its admissibility, merely directed that the application be "kept with the record." This action, or rather, inaction, had left a critical piece of evidence in a state of indefinite ambiguity.

4) The second impugned order, passed on March 13, 2024, was equally disconcerting. The Learned Magistrate, with an unseemly haste, had expunged the name of the petitioner's mother, Smt. Lipika Nandi, from the witness list. This decision was predicated solely upon an unverified police report and a certificate from a local authority, an Up- Pradhan, which unreliably stated that the witness was not residing at the specified address. This order had been passed notwithstanding the fact that the petitioner’s counsel had expressly offered to produce original identity proof documents to incontrovertibly establish the witness's residence. The petitioner had consequently levelled serious allegations of bias and prejudice against the Learned Judicial Magistrate, which rightly prompted this Court to call for a report, now duly on record.

5) Mr. Mukundala Sarkar, Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner, had argued with considerable erudition that the impugned orders were legally and jurisprudentially unsustainable. He vehemently submitted that these orders are not an interlocutory rather they are "intermediate" in nature, which, as per the established jurisprudence of the Hon'ble Supreme Court (Amar Nath & Ors. v. State of Haryana, Madhu Limaye v. State of Maharashtra, and V.C. Shukla v. State), are rightly amenable to revisional scrutiny. Mr. Sarkar rightly pointed out that denying a party the ability to adduce critical evidence and a vital witness strikes at the very root of the right to a fair trial and inevitably leads to a palpable miscarriage of justice.

6) Conversely, Mr