Delhi District Court
State vs Shri Virender Singh on 12 December, 2014
Criminal Revision No. 23/14
IN THE COURT OF SH. PULASTYA PRAMACHALA
ADDITIONAL SESSIONS JUDGE
SHAHDARA DISTRICT, KARKARDOOMA COURTS, DELHI
Criminal Revision No. : 23/14
FIR No. : 274/10
Under Section : 279/304-A IPC
Police Station : Vivek Vihar
Unique I.D. No. : 02402R0286472013
In the matter of :-
State .....Revisionist
VERSUS
Shri Virender Singh
S/o Sh. Harpal Singh,
R/o A-66/1, Gali no.4, Hardev Puri, Delhi-93.
.... Respondent
Date of Institution : 05.09.2013
Date of receiving the case in this court : 23.01.2014
Date of reserving order : 12.11.2014
Date of pronouncement : 12.12.2014
Decision : Revision petition is allowed.
ORDER
1. This revision petition is directed against the order dated 20.07.2013, passed by the trial court, in a case titled as State v. Virender Singh, bearing FIR no. 274/10, PS Vivek Vihar, under Section 279/304-A IPC. Vide impugned order, the trial court discharged the accused for the charge under Section 279/304-A IPC and stopped the proceedings under Section 258 Cr.P.C.
2. Briefly stated, the case of the prosecution is that on 03.12.2010, accused was driving a DTC Recovery Van No. DL-1PB-2281, in rash and negligent manner and hit against motorcycle no. DL-7SAH-5335 and caused death of motorcyclist namely Ikram.
Page 1 of 6 (Pulastya Pramachala)Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No. 23/14 The information of this accident was recorded in PS vide DD entry no. 17-A and on the basis of the said DD entry, FIR was registered U/s 279/337 IPC. Later on, the injured expired and thereafter, charge-sheet was filed against accused for offence U/s 279/304-A IPC.
3. Initially, IO reported that he did not find any eye-witness. However, on 08.04.2011, an eye witness namely Shamshad Hussain appeared before him and IO recorded his statement. Mr. Shamshad Hussain stated before the IO that on 03.12.2010, at around 2:00 PM, he was crossing Deepak Petrol Pump on road no. 56 and at that time, a DTC bus driver hit against a motorcyclist from left side of the bus, due to which the motorcyclist fell down. The DTC bus driver stopped his vehicle after some distance and came on the gate to see the incident . This witness also parked his motorcycle on the side and went to the injured. However, the DTC bus driver started his bus again and fled away towards Seemapuri. This witness could note down only digits of number of this bus which was 2281. That bus was towing another DTC bus. PCR van came at the spot after some time and then, the injured was taken to the hospital by PCR van. This witness further stated that he could identify the bus driver and he had proceeded further to his place due to some personal work. On 08.04.2011, he had come to Shaheed Nagar and he heard a talk going on in respect of aforesaid accident and thereafter, he told those persons that he had seen that accident and he was introduced to the family members of the injured/deceased. Thereafter, the brother of the deceased took him to the IO.
4. The trial court discharged the accused observing that the accused Page 2 of 6 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No. 23/14 was roped in this case only on the basis of statement given by Mr. Shamshad Hussain and even if, statement of this witness was believed to be true word by word, still prosecution could not prove that it was the accused, who had caused the accident. The trial court further observed that this witness neither told complete number of offending vehicle nor did he explain his absence from the spot of accident, after accident. The manner he had met IO on 08.04.2011 was suspicious and full of doubts. It was also apparent from his statement that the offending bus was towing another bus, therefore, it was impossible for the offending bus to be driven at high speed and therefore, the stand taken by this eye-witness was belied from his own statement. It appeared to the trial court that for the sake of solving the case, a person was posed as eye-witness and the involvement of DTC Bus No. DL-1PB-2281 was not made out from the material gathered by the prosecution.
5. Being aggrieved of such order, the State preferred this revision on the following grounds :-
● The trial court did not consider the evidence of eye-witness namely Shamshad recorded under Section 161 Cr.P.C, who had specifically stated the cause of accident was rash and negligent driving by the accused.
● The trial court did not appreciate or consider the evidences available on record, but opted to close the proceedings without any reason.
● The trial court did not appreciate the law that U/s 258 Cr.P.C, the power of the Court to discharge accused at midway stage is restricted.
6. This revision was contested by accused/respondent by filing his Page 3 of 6 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No. 23/14 reply. The respondent supported the impugned order on the grounds that in the initial DD, there was no mention of any person nor any vehicle number was given by the informant. The alleged eye-witness even did not note down the complete number of bus and he had appeared for the first time on 08.04.2011 to tell that he was the eye-witness. IO did not verify the truthfulness of this eye- witness. This witness had neither called at 100 number nor had he taken the injured to the hospital nor he informed the local police or the family members of the injured. Therefore, the trial court rightly disbelieved him.
7. Ld. Chief PP had submitted that this was not the stage for the trial court to pass a final finding in respect of veracity of the alleged eye- witness and the prosecution deserved an opportunity to prove its allegations during trial. On the other hand, ld. counsel for respondent made submissions on the line of reply filed by him.
8. I have given due consideration to the submissions made by both the parties. I have also gone through the record.
9. In Bhushan Kumar v. State AIR 2012 SC 1747, the Apex Court held as under :-
"17. It is inherent in Section 251 of the Code that when an accused appears before the trial court pursuant to summons issued under Section 204 of the Code in a summons trial case, it is the bounden duty of the trial court to carefully go through the allegations made in the chargesheet or complaint and consider the evidence to come to a conclusion whether or not, commission of any offence is disclosed and if the answer is in the affirmative, the Magistrate shall explain the substance of the accusation to the accused and ask him whether he pleads guilty otherwise, he is bound to discharge the accused as per Page 4 of 6 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No. 23/14 Section 239 of the Code."
10. I have started my findings by referring to the aforesaid observation made by the Supreme Court, with only purpose to remind myself that at the stage of framing of notice in a summons case, the Court is to analyze the allegations and evidence with only purpose to find out disclosure of an offence. This means that the Court is not supposed to go further and analyze the allegations and evidence to find out whether the allegations are true or that whether the evidence is reliable or not.
11. In the present case, from the perusal of the trial court record, I find that besides DD No. 17-A, the IO had filed PCR form relating to the information given at Police Control Room regarding the accident in question. In response to such information received by the PCR van, the officials in the van responded back to the Police Control Room at 02:25 PM that an accident had taken place between a DTC bus No. DL1PB-2281 and motorcycle no. DL1SAH-5335 and that injured was handed over to Duty Constable at SDN Hospital. Such information was transmitted to Police Control Room immediately after visit of PCR van on the spot and it does have some relevance. This information supports the case of prosecution and the version of alleged eye-witness regarding the identity of offending vehicle. The eye-witness stated before the IO about the reasons of not meeting him on the day of accident and such explanation has to be appreciated only after conclusion of the trial. From his statement, it does transpire that the offending DTC bus, which was a recovery van, had hit the motorcyclist from his left side. This recovery van was towing another vehicle and it is not always a case that a vehicle running at high speed only is assumed Page 5 of 6 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Criminal Revision No. 23/14 to be driven in rash or negligent manner. A vehicle may be rashly or negligently driven without high speed as well. Such conclusion can be arrived at only after examining the eye-witness in the trial, so as to find out the exact manner in which the accident had taken place. At the stage of framing of notice, it was sufficient for the trial court to find that allegedly the driver of DTC recovery van had hit the motorcyclist from its left side and had run away thereafter, after halting the vehicle for a moment. IO had obtained duty roaster of the accused to establish that he was driving this recovery van, at the given time and the accused had refused to participate in TIP proceedings. Thus, the case projected by the prosecution did disclose an offence U/s 279/304-A IPC, but the trial court could not take notice of the same.
12. In my opinion, the impugned order is not based on correct appreciation of law and the materials placed on the record and hence, it is set-aside. The case projected by the prosecution does prima-facie disclose a case of offence U/s 279/304-A IPC against respondent/accused and therefore, this revision petition is allowed and case is remanded back to the trial court to frame notice against the accused/respondent accordingly and to proceed further with trial of the case, in accordance with law. Respondent is directed to appear before the trial court on 16.12.2014 at 02:00 PM.
13. TCR along with copy of this order be sent back to the trial court through ld. CMM, Shahdara, Delhi.
File of revision be consigned to record room, as per rules. Announced in the open court (PULASTYA PRAMACHALA) today on 12.12.2014 Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) (This order contains 06 pages) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi Page 6 of 6 (Pulastya Pramachala) Additional Sessions Judge (Shahdara) Karkardooma Courts, Delhi