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HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN

BENCH AT JAIPUR

S.B. Criminal Miscellaneous (Petition) No.5961/2024

Chetan Mali S/o Shri Ramswaroop Mali, Aged About 31 Years,

R/o Village Chhan, P.S. Khandar, District Sawai Madhopur (Raj).

----Petitioner

Versus

1. State Of Rajasthan through P.P.

2. Victim

----Respondents

For Petitioner(s) : Mr. Amit Jindal

Ms. Vijay Luxmi Gautam

For Respondent(s) : Mr. Jitendra Singh Rathore, PP

Mr. Gaurav Gupta, Asstt. GA with

Mr. Sapan Soni

Mr. Vishnu Bohra

JUSTICE ANOOP KUMAR DHAND

Order

20/05/2026

1. By way of filing the instant criminal misc. petition, a prayer

has been made to quash the impugned order dated 29.07.2024,

passed by Special Judge, POSCO Act, Sawai Madhopur by which

the application submitted by the petitioner under Section 311 read

with Section 91 Cr.P.C. has been rejected.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the petitioner

is facing trial for the offences under Sections 366, 363, 376, 344

and 346 IPC and Sections 3(2)(v) of SC/ST Act, 1989 and Section

5/6 of the POCSO Act, 2012. Learned counsel submits that as per

the case of the prosecution, relying upon the admission form of

the prosecutrix for Class-IV, the date of birth of the prosecutrix

“M” has been submitted as 10.02.2001. He submits that as per

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the mark-sheet for Class-X, issued by the Board of Secondary

Education, the date of birth of the prosecutrix is 10.02.2000,

whereas according to the prosecutrix, she has studied in Upper

Primary Aadarsh Vidhya Mandir, Chhan where her date of birth

was mentioned as 05.07.1999. He submits that the prosecutrix

was a major, i.e. she was 19 years of age, on the date of alleged

occurrence i.e. 13.11.2018.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner further submits that when

this fact with regard to the date of birth of the prosecutrix being

05.07.1999 according to Class-I school record came into notice of

the petitioner, the instant application has been submitted with a

request to summon the Principal of the said school i.e. Chiranjilal

S/o Kaduram along-with the record of Class-I of the prosecutrix.

Learned counsel submits that the said application submitted by

the petitioner has been rejected on a technical count that affidavit

of other persons was not submitted and the application was

submitted at the stage of final arguments. He submits that

summoning of the aforesaid witness with the aforesaid document

is essential for just decision of the case, hence, interference of this

Court is warranted.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance upon

the judgment passed by the Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of

Natasha Singh Vs. Central Bureau of Investigation (State)

reported in (2013) 5 SCC 741, wherein it has been held in Para 8

as under:-

“8. Section 311 CrPC empowers the court to

summon a material witness, or to examine a person

present at “any stage” of “any enquiry”, or “trial”, or

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“any other proceedings” under CrPC, or to summon

any person as a witness, or to recall and re-examine

any person who has already been examined if his

evidence appears to it, to be essential to the arrival of

a just decision of the case. Undoubtedly, CrPC has

conferred a very wide discretionary power upon the

court in this respect, but such a discretion is to be

exercised judiciously and not arbitrarily. The power of

the court in this context is very wide, and in exercise

of the same, it may summon any person as a witness

at any stage of the trial, or other proceedings. The

court is competent to exercise such power even suo

motu if no such application has been filed by either of

the parties. However, the court must satisfy itself, that

it was in fact essential to examine such a witness, or

to recall him for further examination in order to arrive

at a just decision of the case.”

5. Per contra, learned Public Prosecutor as well as learned

counsel appe