Rajasthan High Court - Jodhpur
Sunil Goyal vs State on 7 July, 2017
Author: Sandeep Mehta
Bench: Sandeep Mehta
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN AT
JODHPUR
S.B. Criminal Revision No. 204 / 2017
Sunil Goyal S/o Shri Ram Gopal Agarwal, Aged About 31 Years,
Resident of Ward No. 5, Sadulshahar, District Sri Ganganagar.
----Petitioner
Versus
State of Rajasthan
----Respondent
_____________________________________________________
For Petitioner(s) : Mr. G.R. Goyal.
For Respondent(s) : Mr. R.K. Bohra, PP.
_____________________________________________________
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SANDEEP MEHTA
Order 07/07/2017 Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Public Prosecutor. Perused the material available on record.
The petitioner herein is facing trial before the learned Special Judge, NDPS Act, Sri Ganganagar for the offences under Sections 8/21, 22 and 29 of the NDPS Act. The trial court framed charges against the accused for the above offences by order dated 19.02.2015. The petitioner challenged the said order by filing a revision petition No.318/2015 in this Court. The said revision was dismissed upon being not pressed by the learned counsel representing the petitioner on 24.04.2015. Evidently, the petitioner did not take any steps to challenge the said order or even against the counsel representing him on the pretext that the withdrawal of the revision was without his consent. However, after rejection of the said revision, the petitioner filed an application (2 of 6) [CRLR-204/2017] before the trial court under Section 461 Cr.P.C. seeking dropping of the proceedings going on against him. The said application was rejected by the trial court by order dated 10.06.2016. The petitioner challenged the said order by filing a revision No.783/2016. The said revision came to be rejected by this Court vide order dated 05.12.2016 by a detailed order and the order passed by the learned Special Judge, NDPS Act Cases was upheld. However, whilst dismissing the revision, this Court made an observation that the petitioner will be at liberty to file fresh application for apprising the court below with regard to jurisdiction. It may be mentioned here that by this time, the order framing charges against the petitioner had attained absolute finality as the same was never challenged. Not resting satisfied with the failure of his repeated endeavours to stall the proceedings, the petitioner moved yet another application in the court below under Section 461 Cr.P.C. praying for dropping of the proceedings. In the said application, the petitioner attempted to again question the proceedings going on before the trial court on merits claiming that he was having licence to possess the contraband drugs. The application was rejected by the trial court by order dated 10.01.2017 whereupon, the instant revision has been preferred.
Shri G.R. Goyal, learned counsel representing the petitioner vehemently urged that the proceedings being continued against the petitioner amount to gross abuse of process of court and thus, should have been dropped. He further urged that the learned counsel representing the petitioner before this Court in revision (3 of 6) [CRLR-204/2017] had not been authorised to not press the same and without the petitioner's consent, the revision was got rejected as not pressed. He further urges that under Section 461 Cr.P.C., a Magistrate not being empowered by law in this behalf cannot try any offender and such irregularity vitiates the proceedings. He further urges that technicalities could not come in the way of imparting justice as held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Union of India & Ors. vs. Ex-GNR Ajeet Singh, reported in (2013)4 SCC 186. With these contentions, Shri Goyal vehemently craved quashment of the order and so also the impugned proceedings pending before the trial court against the petitioner.
Learned Public Prosecutor, on the other hand, vehemently opposed the submissions advanced by the petitioner's counsel and urges that the petitioner failed in his endeavour to challenge the order framing charge and the revision petition preferred against the said order was rejected by this Court albeit upon being not pressed by the counsel representing him in the revision. The petitioner, if he so believed that the counsel did not have authority to not press the revision without instruction, could have taken appropriate steps against the counsel. Further, the order of rejection of the revision could have been carried further to the Apex Court or a review petition should have been filed under Section 461 Cr.P.C.. He urges that the merits of the case cannot be examined and the order framing charge has been upheld because the defence of the accused that he had a licence for possessing the disputed contraband drugs has been examined by the trial court at the stage of framing of charges and the said (4 of 6) [CRLR-204/2017] argument has been turned down. Thus, repeated endeavours of the accused to stall the proceedings virtually amount to interference in the administration of justice and the revision petition should be dismissed with heavy cost.
I have given my thoughtful consideration to the arguments advanced by Shri Goyal and have gone through the material available on record.
Suffice it to say that Section 461 Cr.P.C. under which provisions, the accused filed repeated applications before the court below has no application to the situation at hand. Shri Goyal, upon being put to a pertinent query in this regard, candidly concedes that the Special Judge, NDPS Act Cases, Sri Ganganagar does have jurisdiction and is authorised to try the petitioner. The thrust of his arguments was that no case is made out against the petitioner on merits. The said argument is manifestly frivolous for the simple reason that the accused had the opportunity to raise such objection at the stage of cognizance as well as at the stage of framing of charges. The trial court did not find favour with the said argument and framed charges against the accused vide order dated 19.02.2015. The order framing charges has attained the seal of finality with the rejection of the petitioner's revision by this Court upon being not pressed. It is made clear that When a counsel is engaged to plead the matter on behalf of the accused, such engagement includes the authority to not press the proceedings as per wisdom of the counsel so advises him. Apparently, the plea of the petitioner that the counsel was not authorised to not press the revision is an afterthought because (5 of 6) [CRLR-204/2017] had there been any iota of truth in the said allegation, the petitioner would have taken steps against the counsel or could have filed a review petitioner. It is trite knowledge that learned counsel, upon being faced with the situation of inviting a strong rejection order, withdraw the petitioners and rightly so in the best interests of their clients.
Be that as it may, the order framing charge having become final, the court below has to proceed against the accused for the offences in relation whereto the charges have been framed. The judgment cited by the learned counsel Shri Goyal in support of the preposition that the technicalities should not come in the way of imparting justice has no application because it cannot give handle to the accused to advise the process of law by filing repeated petitions having failed in the earlier endeavour to have the charges quashed. Rather, ratio of the judgment goes against the plea raised by the petitioner's counsel because such hyper- technical pleas cannot be allowed to stall the process of law.
As a consequence of the above discussion, I hold that the endeavour seeking quashment of proceedings through instant revision petition preferred amounts to an attempt to interfere in administration of justice by the petitioner because by filing these repeated applications and revisions, the petitioner is trying to stall the trial pending against him in the court below.
Consequently, finding the revision petition as well as stay application to be meritless and frivolous, the same are hereby dismissed with a cost of Rs.5,000/- upon the petitioner. Cost upon being realised shall be appropriated in the funds of Rajasthan (6 of 6) [CRLR-204/2017] State Legal Services Authority.
(SANDEEP MEHTA)J. Tikam/63