Accused-petitioner, Sant Shri Ashasram Bapu - a self proclaimed Godman, has laid this misc. petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C. to assail impugned order dated 17th of October 2015, passed by District & Sessions Judge, District Jodhpur (for short, ‘learned trial Court’), declining his prayer to recall eight prosecution witnesses for their cross-examination and consequently rejected the application under Section 311 Cr.P.C.

2. The petitioner in his application, inter-alia, averred that subsequent to launching of the criminal prosecution against him, one FIR was lodged at Police Station Nowabad, Jammu bearing No.168 of 2013, which is having direct nexus with the events of the present case. It is also averred in the application that police in the aforesaid FIR during investigation collected mobile call recording, call details, records so also oral evidence and finally filed charge-sheet against the accused persons. Application further unfolds a fact that in connection with the aforesaid FIR certain original documents are collected concerning age of the prosecutorix with which she could not be earlier confronted when she was subjected to cross-examination. While asserting that when the statements of PW5 Prosecutorix, PW19 Rahul Sachan, PW21 Karamveer Singh and PW23 Mahendra Chawla were recorded earlier, requisite material particularly mobile phone recording, call details and oral evidence was not available with the accused-petitioner and therefore these witnesses could not be effectively cross-examined by the defence counsel to confront them and to impeach their testimony. It is in that background, it is prayed in the application that subsequent availability of the aforesaid material has necessitated recalling of these prosecution witnesses to enable defence to cross-examine them in the light of that material for the just decision of the case. A plea is also sought to be raised at the behest of petitioner that application under Section 311 Cr.P.C. cannot be rejected solely on the ground of delay.

3. The petitioner has also made endeavour in his application to castigate the prosecution for concealing relevant and material facts for craving leave to recall these witnesses in order to facilitate unearthing truth in the matter. Castigating the Investigating Officer, petitioner has also pleaded in the application that for soliciting necessary information about him, investigating officer has also thoroughly surfed the website of Ashram and continued its tirade in this behalf till submission of charge-sheet in the matter. A fact is also averred in the application that investigating officer has incorporated certain informations in the charge-sheet which were collected from the website. For pleading all these facts essentially, the petitioner has made an attempt to highlight partiality in the investigation. That apart, some other facts are also pleaded in the application for recalling all these witnesses for cross-examination.

4. The application laid on behalf of petitioner is contested by the prosecution and in its reply it is pleaded by the prosecution that application is not in accordance with the provisions of Section 311 Cr.P.C. The prosecution has submitted in the return that power under Section 311 Cr.P.C. lies with the Court and no party including prosecution or the accused can invoke Section 311 Cr.P.C. as a matter of right. While referring to the alleged material collected by Jammu police during investigation of FIR No.168 of 2013, it is submitted by the respondent prosecution that on the basis of alleged material collected during investigation; viz., mobile recording, call details, it is not possible to express any opinion about reliability of the said documents much less its authenticity in want of disclosure of the source by the accused petitioner. As regards, the documents collected by Jammu police throwing light on the age of prosecutorix, respondent prosecution has specifically pleaded that this fact is absolutely false a