Whether a magistrate can direct the police to submit a chargesheet, when the police have after the investigation of the commission of a cognizable have submitted a final report under section 173 of CrPC, 1973?
Section 173 in The Code Of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
Whether a Magistrate can after accepting the final report where no offences are made, acquit the accused and drop the proceedings without issuing notice to the first informant or to the injured or in this case the relatives of the deceased?
If the opinion in the report under Section 173 by the police states that no offence is seemed to have been committed, the Magistrate has 3 options:
1. He may accept the report and drop the proceeding.
2. He may disagree with the report and taking a view that there is sufficient grounds
to proceed further, may take cognizance of the offence and issue process.
3. He may direct further investigation to be made by the police under section 156(3).
Whether Magistrate has the power to order a further investigation after filing of charge sheet by police and if yes, up to what stage of criminal proceedings?
Whether the Magistrate is authorized under Section 173(8) to order a further investigation after a police report has been forwarded to him?
It would be in the interest of justice that this power be exercised suo motu by the Magistrate himself, depending on the facts of each case. Whether further investigation should or should not be ordered is within the discretion of the learned Magistrate who will exercise such discretion on the facts of each case and in accordance with law. If, for example, fresh facts come to light which would lead to inculpating or exculpating certain persons, arriving at the truth and doing substantial justice in a criminal case are more important than avoiding further delay being caused in concluding the criminal proceeding.
Whether the error committed by the Magistrate has occasioned a gross failure of Justice?
At the stage of Sections 203 & 204 of the Code in a case exclusively triable by the Court of Session, all that the Magistrate has to do is to see whether on a cursory perusal of the complaint and the evidence recorded during the preliminary inquiry under Sections 200 & 202 there is prima facie evidence in support of the charge levelled against the accused.
All that he has to see is whether or not there is “sufficient ground for proceeding” against the accused. If there is prima facie evidence, that will be a sufficient ground for issuing process to the accused and committing them for trial to the Court of Session. The standard to be adopted by the Magistrate in scrutinizing the evidence is not the same as the one which is to be kept in view at the stage of framing charges. At this stage of Sections 203 & 204, the Magistrate is not to weigh the evidence meticulously as if he were the trial court.
However, where the Magistrate does not lack inherent jurisdiction to pass the order, he, in meticulously appreciating the evidence, only oversteps the limits of his direction and commits only an irregularity, if not illegality, in the exercise of his jurisdiction.
Whether the Magistrate should have summarily dismissed the complaint under Section 203, Criminal Procedure Code against Suraj Bhan accused?
Whether the error committed by the magistrate has occasioned into a gross failure of justice?
Section 200, 202, 203 and 204 of the Criminal Procedure Code.