The revisional court improperly scrutinized evidence at the charge framing stage, leading to the discharge of the accused without sufficient grounds.

ORDER :

1. The present revision petition under Section 397/401 Cr.P.C. has been filed by the petitioner/complainant against the order dated 05.03.2019 passed by learned Additional Session Judge No. 2, Abu Road, Sirohi whereby learned Judge quashed & set aside the order dated 05.09.2016, passed by the learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Mount Abu in CR No. 420/2014, registered at PS Mount Abu, District Sirohi and discharged the respondent No. 2 from offence punishable under Sections 409, 467, 468, 471, 120B IPC.

2. Brief facts of the case are that the petitioner-Society filed a complaint before the learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Mount Abu for offence under Sections 409, 420, 467, 468, 471 IPC inter-alia alleging therein that its head office is situated at Mount Abu. The accused-respondent No. 2 being Branch Manager at Mount Abu Branch, prepared forged documents of the account holders and withdrew advance loan against the deposit of account holders. During audit, the cheating and embezzlement committed by the respondent No. 2 came to the notice of the petitioner-society that he committed fraud of Rs. 4,81,971/- along with other accused persons.

3. The complaint of the petitioner-society was sent to the concerned Police Station for investigation and after investigation, Police filed challan against four accused-persons for offence under Sections 409, 420, 467, 468, 471, 120B IPC. Thereafter, the learned trial court vide order dated 05.09.2016 framed charges against the accused persons including respondent No. 2 for the aforesaid offences. Against the said order, a revision was preferred by the accused-respondent No. 2 before learned Additional Session Judge No. 2, Abu Road, Sirohi, which came to be allowed vide order dated 05.03.2019 and the revisional court while setting aside the order of framing charge i.e. 05.09.2016, discharged the respondent No. 2 from the aforesaid offences. Hence, this revision petition.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner-Society submits that the learned revisional court has committed gross error in passing the impugned order, as the revisional court has exceeded its jurisdiction while discharging the accused respondent No. 2 from the charges as at the stage of framing of charge, the court has to consider prima facie whether there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused person or not and the court is not required to minutely scrutinize the evidence. But in the present case, the learned revisional court has minutely scrutinized the evidence and passed the impugned order discharging the accused-respondent No. 2 from the aforesaid offences. Thus, the impugned order passed by the revisional court is per-se illegal and deserves to be quashed and set aside.

5. Per contra, learned Public Prosecutor as well as learned counsel for respondent No. 2 have vehemently submitted that no specific role has been assigned to the accused-respondent No. 2. In the petitioner-society, forged voucher as well as forged loan form were prepared by accused persons Jagdev Singh, Shahid Khan & Imran Qureshi and not by the respondent No. 2. Further, specimen signature of respondent No. 2 was also not taken for FSL. It is further submitted that later on, it has also come on record that accused Jagdev Singh has admitted that he himself embezzled the money in the petitioner-society. Thus, the learned revisional court has rightly discharged the accused-respondent No. 2 from the aforesaid offences.

6. Heard the learned counsel for the parties and perused the impugned order as well as carefully gone through the material available on record.

7. In the present case, after thorough investigation, Police has filed the charge-sheet against the accused-respondent No. 2 for offence under Sections 409, 467, 468, 471, 120B IPC. Thereafter the trial court framed the charges against the accused-respondent No. 2 for the said offences. Against the framing of charge, the accused-respondent No. 2 filed a revision petiti