Point of Law: Magistrate may attendance of accused -Whenever a Magistrate issues may, if he sees reason so to with the personal attendance of the accused and permit him to appear by his pleader.

ORDER :

All these Criminal M.C.s are filed by the accused seeking a direction to the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Kakkanad, to consider the applications submitted by him under section 205 of the Cr.P.C, for exemption from personal appearance in the cases registered against him, without insisting for his personal appearance, even for the first time.

2. All the said cases are instituted upon private complaints submitted by the 1st respondent in all the said Crl.M.C.s, and the offences alleged are under Section 406,423, 120B read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, and the petitioner is the first accused in all the said cases. In all the said cases, the petitioner was served with the summons and the petitioner submitted applications under Section 205 of Cr.P.C seeking exemption from personal appearance before the court and to permit him to appear through his counsel. The applications submitted in this regard are pending before the learned Magistrate and the learned Magistrate directed the petitioner to appear in person before the court, even before passing orders on the said applications. The details of the cases and the applications filed are as follows:

3. In the cases shown as serial Nos. 1 to 4, the learned Magistrate passed orders directing the petitioners to appear before the court, before the respective applications for exemption are considered, whereas in the remaining cases, oral directions to that effect were issued. These Crl.M.Cs were filed in such circumstances, seeking a direction to the learned Magistrate to consider the applications submitted for exemption under Section 205 of Cr.P.C, without insisting on the personal appearance of the petitioner.

4. The reason highlighted by the petitioner for exemption from personal appearance, as mentioned in his applications, is as follows;

“2. The petitioner is a senior citizen aged 77 years. The petitioner is the head of Syro Malabar Church spread over whole world, having a membership of 55 lakhs. The petitioner bestowed with the duty of performing religious ceremonies, rituals, including ordination of Bishops, pries, consecration of churches, etc. The petitioner also had to render supervisory administrative functions over 35 dioceses out of which 4 are out of India and 18 are outside Kerala. The petitioner is also the head of the Kerala Catholic Bishop’s Council and he has to attend meetings as well as perform duties as the President of KCBC. The petitioner is also the member of College of Cardinals and also has to attend meetings in Rome.

3. The allegation in this case are basically based on documents. The identification of the petitioner is not necessary with respect to the evidence in this case. The petitioner had filed an undertaking stating that he will not dispute his identity, he will appear through a counsel and his counsel will be present on all posting dates and also he does not have any objection in taking the evidence in his absence treating the presence of the counsel as his presence. The petitioner also has authorized his counsel to record his plea.”

5. Heard Sri.P.Vijayabahanu, the learned Senior Counsel, assisted by Sri.John Varghese, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner in all the Crl.M.Cs, Sri.Vipin Narayan, learned Public Prosecutor for the State and Sri. V.Rajendran learned Counsel appearing for 1st respondent/complainant.

6. The le