The trial court must not conduct a mini-trial when framing charges; it should only assess if a prima facie case exists for the alleged offence.

JUDGMENT ;

1. This revision petition is directed against the order dated 12.12.2011 passed by the court of learned Principal Sessions Judge, Budgam (for short ‘the trial court’) in case titled as “State versus Abdul Majid Ganai and others” whereby the learned trial court has discharged the respondent Nos. 1 and 2 in respect of allegations of commission of offence under section 302 RPC and instead charged them for commission of offence under section 304 part-II RPC.

2. It is contended by the petitioner that it is settled position of law that the court cannot meticulously examine the evidence collected by the Investigating Officer during investigation, while considering the issue of charge/discharge and rather the court has to only examine whether prima facie case in respect of commission of offence is made out against the accused persons or not. It is further urged that the learned trial court without perusing the record has simply accepted the plea of defence and brushed aside the evidence brought on record by the prosecution.

3. Mr. Alla ud Din Ganai, learned AAG has argued that the learned trial court could not have discharged the respondent No. 1 and 2 in respect of allegations pertaining to commission of offence under section 302 RPC by accepting the plea of defence of the accused nos. 1 and 2, which otherwise was required to be considered during the trial.

4. Per contra, Mr. Z. A. Qureshi, learned senior counsel appearing for the respondents 1 to 15 has submitted that from the prosecution story itself, it is evident that a sudden fight took place between the two factions of Ahli Hadees and there was no intention on the part of the respondent Nos. 1 and 2 to kill the deceased. Mr. Qureshi has placed reliance upon the judgement of the Apex Court in Surajit Sarkar v. State of W.B, (2013) 2 SCC 146.

5. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the scanned record of the trial court.

6. Before this court proceeds ahead to consider the rival contentions of the parties, it would be apt to take note of the relevant pronouncements of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, wherein the guardrails have been laid down for the trial courts for the purpose of finding out as to whether the accused is required to be charged or not.

7. In ‘Ghulam Hassan Beigh v. Mohd. Maqbool Magrey’, (2022) 12 SCC 657, the trial court had discharged the accused from commission of offence under section 302 IPC and had charged the accused for commission of offence under section 304 IPC. The order was upheld by the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. The orders of the trial court and the High Court were challenged before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India and both the orders were set aside by the Hon’ble Supreme Court and it was held and observed as under:

29. What did the trial court do in the case on hand? We have no doubt in our mind that the trial court could be said to have conducted a mini trial while marshalling the evidence on record. The trial court thought it fit to discharge the accused persons from the offence of murder and proceeded to frame charge for the offence of culpable homicide under Section 304 IPC by only taking into consideration the medical evidence on record. The trial court as well as the High Court got persuaded by the fact that the cause of death of the deceased as assigned in the post-mortem report being the “cardio respiratory failure”, the same cannot be said to be having any nexus with the alleged assault that was laid on the deceased. Such approach of the trial court is not correct and cannot be countenanced in law.

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31. To put it in other words, whether the cause of death has any nexus with the alleged assault on the deceased by the accused persons could have been determined only after the recording of oral evidence of the eyewitnesses and the expert witness along with the other substantive evidence on record. The post-mortem report of the doctor is his previous statement based on his examination of the dead bo