Allahabad High Court
Raj Singh And 2 Others vs State Of U.P. And Another on 19 January, 2021
Author: Ajit Singh
Bench: Ajit Singh
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD ?Court No. - 90 Case :- APPLICATION U/S 482 No. - 16084 of 2020 Applicant :- Raj Singh And 2 Others Opposite Party :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Applicant :- Ashutosh Sharma Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A. Hon'ble Ajit Singh,J.
Heard learned counsel for the applicant and learned AGA for the State.
This application has been filed for setting aside the summoning order (undated) issued in Criminal Case No.270 of 2020, (State vs. Rajmala and others), bearing Case Crime No.102/2018, under Sections 420, 467, 468 and 471 I.P.C., P.S. Mundali, District Meerut passed by the Court of Judicial Magistrate-I, Meerut.
The first and foremost submission made by learned counsel for the applicant was that the impugned order of taking cognizance against the applicants is wholly illegal and invalid, because the said order has been passed on the printed proforma by filling up the blanks and hence this order is liable to be quashed on this ground alone, as the learned Magistrate while taking cognizance on the charge-sheet did not at all apply his mind to the facts of the case and material available in the case diary and on filling up the gaps by court employee on the printed proforma, the learned Magistrate has initialed the impugned order, which cannot be said to the valid order in the eye of law, because judicial order cannot be passed in the manner in which the impugned order has been prepared and passed by the learned Magistrate in present case.
Relying upon the decision of this Court in Ankit Vs. State of U.P. and another, JIC 2010 (1) 432, submission of the learned counsel for the applicants is that the order impugned being on a printed proforma is clearly without application of judicial mind and hence is liable to be quashed on this ground alone.
Learned AGA has also admitted that the order impugned has been passed on the printed proforma and therefore, keeping in view the decision in the case of Ankit (supra), the Magistrate concerned may be directed to pass a fresh order.
I have considered the arguments so advanced by learned counsel for the applicants and learned A.G.A. and also perused the record.
The certified copy of the order summoning the accused has been appended as Annexure-1.
From a perusal of the above order, it is evident that it is a typed proforma where only information of case number, name of parties, section, date and next date is to be filled by Magistrate in handwriting. It appears that the blanks in the printed proforma have been filled up by some court employee and the Magistrate has thereafter just put his initial, which leads to the conclusion that the Magistrate has passed the order in a mechanical manner without application of judicial mind.
Despite there being a series of decisions of the Apex Court and this Court disapproving such practice of passing orders on printed proforma by the judicial officers, it is very painful and unfortunate to see that applicants in the present case have been summoned by the Magistrate by an order in which blanks have been filled in on a printed proforma without applying judicial mind. This type of order has already been held unsustainable by this Court in the case of Ankit (supra) relying on in a number of decisions of the Apex Court. The relevant portion of the said decision, is extracted below:
"Although as held by this Court in the case of Megh Nath Gupta & Anr V State of U.P. And Anr, 2008 (62) ACC 826, in which reference has been made to the cases of Deputy Chief Controller Import and Export Vs Roshan Lal Agarwal, 2003 (4^) ACC 686 (SC), UP Pollution Control Board Vs Mohan Meakins, 2000 (2) JIC 159 (SC): AIR 2000 SC 1456 and Kanti Bhadra Vs State of West Bengal, 2000 (1) JIC 751 (SC): 2000 (40) ACC 441 (SC), the Magistrate is not required to pass detailed reasoned order at the time of taking cognizance on the charge sheet, but it does not mean that order of taking cognizance can be passed by filling up the blanks on printed proforma. At the time of passing any judicial order including the order taking cognizance on the charge sheet, the Court is required to apply judicial mind and even the order of taking cognizance cannot be passed in mechanical manner. Therefore, the impugned order is liable to be quashed and the matter has to be sent back to the Court below for passing fresh order on the charge sheet after applying judicial mind."(Emphasis supplied).
In view of the above, the conduct of the judicial officer concerned in passing order on printed proforma by filling up the blanks without application of judicial mind is objectionable and deserves to be deprecated. The summoning of an accused in a criminal case is a serious matter and the order must reflect that Magistrate had applied his mind to the facts as well as law applicable thereto.
On a pure legal question as discussed above, therefore, both the parties agreed that the order may be set aside and the matter may be remitted to the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate concerned to take fresh decision in the matter of cognizance.
In view of what has been stated above, the present application is allowed.
The summoning order (undated) passed by the court of Judicial Magistrate-I, Meerut is hereby quashed. Judicial Magistrate-I, Meerut is directed to pass fresh order after applying the judicial mind.
Order Date :- 19.1.2021 Asha