The main legal point established is that under Section 540 Cr.P.C., the court has the power to summon witnesses or examine persons at any stage of the trial if their evidence appears essential to the just decision of the case.

JUDGMENT :

1. Inherent jurisdiction under section 482 Cr.P.C. is being sought for quashing the order dated 10.11.2021 (for brevity 'impugned order') passed in File No. 129/Comp titled as M/s. Triloki Nath Satish Kumar v. Harshwardhan Singh (complaint under section 138 of the Negotiable Instrument Act) passed by the Court of Learned Special Mobile Magistrate (Passenger Tax), Jammu (for brevity 'learned Magistrate') whereby the learned Magistrate while allowing the application filed by the complainant under section 540 Cr.P.C. has summoned the record pertaining to account No. 1524 maintained by the petitioner.

2. The impugned order dated 10.11.2021 has been called in question in this petition precisely, on the following grounds:-

i) That the order impugned is not sustainable in the eyes of law, since the application filed by the complainant/respondent where the prayer has been made for summoning of record from the J&K Bank Patel Nagar, Branch, Jammu with respect to the account of the petitioner and the Court below knowingly well that the case has been finally heard and reserved for judgment by exceeding the jurisdiction and in order to fill up the lacuna in the complainant's case by misusing the mandate of Section 540 Cr.P.C. has ordered to summoned the witnesses where the prayer has been made to call for the record. The application has been allowed by the knowingly that the complaint was filed in the year, 2009 and after 12 years of a long trial has allowed the application just on the ground that the court has the discretion to summon the witnesses where in a private complaint neither the said witness was in the list of the complainant's witnesses nor the prayer was made by the respondent to summon the Bank Manager as a witness in the present application. The learned court by exceeding the jurisdiction has passed the order impugned without appreciating this fact that the prayer in the application is only to summon the record.

ii) That the summoning of record is beyond the scope of Section 540 Cr.P.C. where the scope cannot be extended and the court on its own can summon the witness and that the Manager J&K Bank was neither in the list of the witnesses nor any prayer was made by the respondent for summoning the said officer as a witness in the case. The respondents never applied for summoning of said witnesses, but the Court below by exceeding the jurisdiction passed the order impugned.

iii) That the Court below has committed an error in passing the order impugned, as such, is liable to be quashed.

iv) That the order impugned is otherwise not sustainable in the eyes of law, since the prayer made in the application is to summon the record and none of the witness sought to have been summoned by the respondent and the Court below was not obliged to go beyond the scope of the prayer made in the application;

3. Scanned record has been summoned.

4. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the material on record as well as record of the Court below.

5. A perusal of the record tends to show that a that a complaint under section 138 of the Negotiable Instrument Act has been filed by the complainant before the learned Magistrate against the petitioner here in alleging that the cheque issued by him was dishonored by the Bank on account of insufficient amount.

6. The said complaint filed by the complainant/respondent herein is pending since 20.03.2009. An application came to be file by the complainant/respondent herein for summoning the record from the J&K Bank, Patel Nagar Branch, Jammu with regard to the credit of an amount of Rs. 03 lacs in the account of petitioner-Filling Station owned by the petitioner herein from the account of the complainant.

7. In the application (supra) filed by the complainant/respondent herein, it was stated as under :-

“That the complainant/applicant paid an amount of Rs. 3 Lacs by Cheque i.e. Cheque No. 7956, to the respondent/accused who is the owner of the Petrol Filing Station and accordingly took the cheque