Madhya Pradesh High Court
Puneet Tiwari vs The State Of Madhya Pradesh Thr on 16 August, 2017
Author: S.K.Awasthi
Bench: S.K.Awasthi
-( 1 )- CRR No. 1069/2016
HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH
BENCH AT GWALIOR
SINGLE BENCH
BEFORE JUSTICE S.K.AWASTHI
Criminal Revision No 1069/2016
Punit Tiwari
Versus
State of Madhya Pradesh
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Shri Sushil Goswami, Advocate for the applicant.
Shri R.K.Awasthi, Public Prosecutor for the respondent/
State.
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ORDER
(16.08.2017) The instant Criminal Revision application takes exception to the order dated 03.10.2016 passed by V Additional Sessions Judge, Vidisha in Sessions Trial No. 64/2016, whereby the application filed by the present applicant under Section 227 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 seeking discharge from the offences alleged against him punishable under Section 148, 323, 323/149, 294, 307 and 307/149 of IPC has been dismissed.
2. The prosecution story which has led to filing of the present revision application is that on 08.11.2015, at around 6.30 PM, the complainant, Vikas Tiwari was passing by near Manohar Talkies, when the applicant along with other persons came and started hurling abuses towards the complainant and started beating him. One of the persons along with the applicant fired a shot with the intention to kill the complainant. However, the shot fired hit the back of the complainant. Seeing this, the applicant along with other persons ran away from the place of incident. According to the complainant, one of the co-accused persons, Rahul, was to owe a huge -( 2 )- CRR No. 1069/2016 sum of money to the complainant and in order to pressurize and terrorize the complainant, the applicant and the co-accused Rahul along with other persons committed the alleged offences upon the complainant.
3. The applicant has approached this Court on the premise that the trial initiated against him is bad in law. According to the learned counsel for the applicant, the FIR against him is a counter-blast to some previous case, in which the applicant was beaten up by the complainant. It was also submitted that on the date of the incident i.e. 08.11.2015, the applicant was in Bhopal and not at the place of incident and this can be corroborated by the CCTV records and mobile phone records, the Compact Discs, which have been annexed along with the instant Criminal Revision application. Further, learned counsel for the applicant argued that in order to pressurize the applicant to depose in favour of the complainant in trial initiated in furtherance to FIR bearing Crime No. 84/13 registered at Police Station Nateran, District Vidisha, the complainant has lodged a false FIR against him. Another contention canvassed by learned counsel for the applicant is that the complainant belongs to a power political family and has exerted his influence in lodging of a false criminal case against the applicant. Lastly, it was contended that the applicant has an M.Tech Degree and has started a private business. He is also a social worker who donates blood frequently.
4. To the contrary, learned counsel for the respondent supported the impugned order and contended that the arguments advanced by the applicant are in nature of defence which can only be considered at the stage of Trial.
5. I have carefully examined the documents filed -( 3 )- CRR No. 1069/2016 along with the present revision application and perused the record.
6. In the considered opinion of this Court, at the stage of framing of charges, the scope available to this Court is very limited. This observation is fortified by the law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of State of Orissa v. Debendra Nath Padhi, (2005) 1 SCC 568, wherein it was held that:
"As a result of the aforesaid discussion, in our view, clearly the law is that at the time of framing charge or taking cognizance the accused has no right to produce any material. Satish Mehra case holding that the trial court has powers to consider even materials which the accused may produce at the stage of Section 227 of the Code has not been correctly decided."
Thus, the argument of considering the CCTV records and mobile records pales into insignificance at this stage. This observation is further compounded by the ratio of judgment pronounced by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Chitresh v. State, (2009) 16 SCC 605, wherein it was held that:
"25. It is trite that at the stage of framing of charge, the court is required to evaluate the material and documents on record with a view to finding out if the facts emerging therefrom, taken at their face value, disclose the existence of all the ingredients constituting the alleged offence or offences. For this limited purpose, the court may sift the evidence as it cannot be expected even at the initial stage to accept as gospel truth all that the prosecution states. At this stage, the court has to consider the material only with a view to find out if there is ground for "presuming"
that the accused has committed an offence and not for the purpose of arriving at the conclusion that it is not likely to lead to a conviction."
7. Further, the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Anvar P.V. -( 4 )- CRR No. 1069/2016 v. P.K. Basheer, (2014) 10 SCC 473, has categorically held that:
"14. Any documentary evidence by way of an electronic record under the Evidence Act, in view of Sections 59 and 65-A, can be proved only in accordance with the procedure prescribed under Section 65-B. Section 65-B deals with the admissibility of the electronic record. The purpose of these provisions is to sanctify secondary evidence in electronic form, generated by a computer. It may be noted that the section starts with a non obstante clause. Thus, notwithstanding anything contained in the Evidence Act, any information contained in an electronic record which is printed on a paper, stored, recorded or copied in optical or magnetic media produced by a computer shall be deemed to be a document only if the conditions mentioned under sub-section (2) are satisfied, without further proof or production of the original. The very admissibility of such a document i.e. electronic record which is called as computer output, depends on the satisfaction of the four conditions under Section 65-B(2). Following are the specified conditions under Section 65-B(2) of the Evidence Act:
(i) The electronic record containing the information should have been produced by the computer during the period over which the same was regularly used to store or process information for the purpose of any activity regularly carried on over that period by the person having lawful control over the use of that computer;
(ii) The information of the kind contained in electronic record or of the kind from which the information is derived was regularly fed into the computer in the ordinary course of the said activity;
(iii) During the material part of the said period, the computer was operating properly and that even if it was not operating properly for some time, the break or breaks had not affected either the record or the accuracy of its contents;-( 5 )- CRR No. 1069/2016
and
(iv) The information contained in the record should be a reproduction or derivation from the information fed into the computer in the ordinary course of the said activity."
8. The contention by the learned counsel for the applicant that the criminal case against him is a counter- blast is a matter of evidence and cannot be considered at this stage. Similarly, the contention relating to political power of the complainant is again a subject-matter of trial and warrants no consideration by this Court.
9. Taking this view of the matter and leaving all the questions raised by the applicant open, the present revision application is accordingly dismissed.
(S.K.Awasthi)
(Yog) Judge