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Showing contexts for: section 209 in Bhola Rai And Anr. vs State Of Bihar And Anr. on 25 April, 1997Matching Fragments
(ii) the statements and confessions, if any, recorded under Section 161 or Section 164;
(iii) any document produced before the Magistrate on which the prosecution proposes to rely:
Provided that if the Magistrate is satisfied that any such document is voluminous, he shall, instead of furnishing the accused with a copy thereof, direct that he will only be allowed to inspect it either personally or through pleader in Court.
Section 209: Commitment of case to Court of Sessions when offence is triable exclusively by it. - When in a case instituted on a police report or otherwise, the accused appears or is brought before the Magistrate and it appears to the Magistrate that the offence is triable exclusively by the Court of Sessions, he shall-
(d) notify the Public Prosecutor of the commitment of the case to the Court of Sessions.
6. From bare reading of the aforesaid provisions, it is manifest that the duty of the Magistrate is limited one. Under Section 207 of the Code, the Magistrate is required to furnish to the accused free of cost copies of certain documents in a case where the proceeding has been instituted on a police report. In cases instituted otherwise than on a police report if it appears that the offence is triable exclusively by the Court of sessions then the Magistrate shall furnish to the accused all necessary documents mentioned Under Section 208 of the Code. The function of the Magistrate Under Section 209 of the Code is also limited to the extent that if it appears to the Magistrate that the offence is triable exclusively by the Court of session then the Magistrate, after complying with the provisions of Sections 207 and 208 of the Code, commit the case to the Court of session. In other words, the Magistrate is not empowered at the stage of Section 209 CrPC to apply his mind on merit of the matter as to who are the persons liable to face trial before the Court of session. Since an enquiry by the Committing Magistrate is not contemplated by the scheme of the present Code the procedure provided in Section 209 radically different from the commitment proceeding provided in Chapter 18 of the repealed Code. The Apex Court, while considering the scope of Sections 209 and 319 CrPC after taking notice of the 41st. Report of the Law Commission in the case of Raj Kishore Prasad v. State of Bihar, 1996 Cri LR 2523 : (AIR 1996 SC 1931) held as under at page 2526; of Cri LJ:-
11. The present Section 209 is thus the product of the aforesaid expert deliberation followed by legislative exercise. It is thus to be seen prominently that preliminary inquiries then known as "committal proceedings" have been abolished in cases triable by a Court of Session. The functions left to be performed by the Magistrate, such as granting copies, preparing the records, notifying the Public Prosecutor etc. are thus preliminary or ministerial in nature. It is of course true that the Magistrate at that juncture; takes cognizance of a sort, but that is solely to perform those preliminary functions as a facilitator, towards placement of the case before the Court of Session, rather than being an adjudicator. It is thus manifest that in the sphere of the limited functioning of the Magistrate, no application of mind is required in order to determine any issue raised, or to adjudge anyone guilty or not or otherwise to pronounce upon the truthfulness of any version. The role of the Magistrate thus is only to see that the package sent to the Court of Session is in order, so that it can proceed straightway with the trial and that nothing is lacking in content, as per requirement of Sections 207 and 208 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Such proceedings thus, in our opinion do not fall squarely within the ambit of "inquiry" as defined in Section 2(g) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which defines that "inquiry" means every inquiry, other than a trial conducted under this Code by a Magistrate or a Court", because of preclude of its being "subject to the context otherwise requiring". As said before, the context requires the proceeding before a Magistrate to be formal, barely committal in that sense, and that any notion based upon the old state of law of its being an inquiry to which Section 319 could get attracted, has been done away with. Therefore, it would be legitimate for us to conclude that the Magistrate at the stage of Section 209, CrPC is forbidden to apply his mind to the merit of the matter and determine as to whether any accused need be added or substracted to face trial before the Court of Session.
8. From bare perusal of the aforesaid provision, it is clear that it operates in an on going inquiry into, or trial of, an offence. In the case of Raj Kishore Prasad (supra) the Apex Court held as follows (at page 2525; of Cri LJ):
8. Sub-section (1) of Section 319 makes it clear that it operates in an on going inquiry into, or trial of, an offence. In order to apply Section 319, it is thus essential that the need to proceed against the person other than the accused, appearing to be guilty of offence, arises only on evidence recorded in the course of any inquiry or trial. Proceedings before a Magistrate under Section 209 CrPC are patently not trial proceedings and were never considered so at any point of time historically. There has never been any doubt on that account. Before the amendment of the Code of Criminal Procedure in the present form, commitment proceedings had the essential attributes of an inquiry and were termed as such. Now do they continue to be so is the core question, to determine and spell out the powers of the Magistrate under Section 209 CrPC If proceedings under Section 209 CrPC continue to be an inquiry, Section 319 CrPC would be obviously attracted subject of course to deciding whether the material put-forth by the investigation could be termed as `evidence', as otherwise no evidence is recordable by a Magistrate in such proceedings.