Point of Law: An advocate in the discharge of his duties to his client must not be hampered by any fear of offending the opposite party or any witness, and in the wake of such a duty it is further pointed out that questions will have to be asked which may not be fit for the drawing room or which may appear to be scandalous but "what is relevant cannot be scandalous".

ORDER :

1. By filing this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners-original accused call in question the legality and validity of the order dated 02.03.2020 passed by learned 13th Additional Sessions Judge, Rajkot in Sessions Case No.177 of 2013 below Exh.236 in the cross-examination of PW.25.

2. With the consent of learned advocates appearing for the respective parties, the matter has been taken up for final disposal. The petitioners are facing sessions trial for the charges under Sections 143, 147, 148, 149, 302, 452, 504, 506(2), 323 and 324 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 135 of Gujarat Police Act. During the course of recording evidence of PW.25, Exh.236, the defence had asked a question pertaining to police yadi along with the report Exh.241. The learned trial Court has refused to permit the defence counsel to ask the question to be asked to the witness. Aggrieved by the order of refusal, the present petitioners have come up before this Court to quash the impugned order.

3. Relying on the decision of Co-ordinate Bench of this Court in case of Prashant Maheshbhai Pandya & Ors. vs. State of Gujarat reported in 2016 (3) Crimes. 90, Mr. Ashish Dagli, learned advocate for the petitioners would submit that the learned trial Court has not properly followed the law laid down by this Court in the case of Prashant Maheshbhai Pandya (supra) and straightaway rejected the application and therefore, the learned trial Court has committed an error in disallowing the question referred to above.

4. On the other hand, learned APP Ms. Shruti Pathak appearing for the respondent-State opposing the present application would submit that the impugned order being an interlocutory order, this Court may not exercise its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

5. Having heard learned advocates appearing for the respective parties and on perusal of record of the case as well as the impugned order, it appears that the learned trial Court has taken a note of the law laid down by this Court in the case of Prashant Maheshbhai Pandya (supra), but, in the facts of present case, how it is not applicable, that has not been discussed by the learned trial Court. It is relevant to refer the observations made in the cited judgment. The extracts of paragraph nos.8 to 23 of the aforesaid judgment reads as under:

“8 Having heard the learned counsel appearing for the parties and having gone through the materials on record, the question that falls for my consideration is whether the trial Judge committed any error in disallowing the question put to the original complainant in his cross-examination by the defence counsel.

9 In my view, this litigation could have been easily avoided by the Court below, had the Court been aware of the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of State through Special Cell, New Delhi vs. Navjot Sandhu @ Afshan Guru and others, [2003 (6) SCC 641].

10 The endevour of the Court wherever there is a serious dispute with regard to the relevancy and admissibility of the question should be to elicit the answer of the witness after noting objections. The final decision to reject a particular piece of evidence as irrelevant or inadmissible can be if necessary taken at the end of the trial. Such procedure would benefit even the Appellate Court in a case where the question is disallowed or excluded from the evidence and the Appellate Court feels that the same was essential, it is at that stage not required to remit the matter for reexamination of the witness. The cross-examination is a very important tool of an accused to test the veracity of the evidence of the witness and discredit his trustworthiness. However, this does not mean that the trial Court will not exercise its discretion in disallowing the irrelevant questions. In State through Special Cell (supra), it was held as under:

“4. It is the case of the prosecution that after the investigation was completed the chargesheet was filed on 14-5-200