Madhya Pradesh High Court: While deciding a petition filed under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC) which was filed by the petitioner against the order passed by the Special Judge, SC/ST Act, Raghogarh, District Guna where his application for calling the witness under Section 311 of CrPC has been rejected, a single-judge bench of Anand Pathak,* J., quashed the impugned order of the trial court and held that to prevent the miscarriage of justice and to uphold the ultimate goal of justice, the trial court was directed to call relevant witnesses as sought to be called by the petitioner.
Factual Matrix
On 15-04-2018, a complaint was made by the complainant against the petitioner and others stating that the complainant along with his friends was abused and beaten up with sharp weapons by the petitioner and his family members. Thereafter, the complainant went to the police station and lodged the First Investigation Report (FIR) vide Crime No. 171/2018 against the petitioner under Sections 147, 148, 149, 207, 323, 294 of the Penal Code 1860 (IPC) and Sections 3(2) (v-a), 3(1)(R) of the Atrocities Act. The petitioner also lodged an FIR against the complainant vide Crime No. 173/2018 for the offence under Sections 294, 323, 324, 506, 34 of the IPC.
Parties’ Contentions
The petitioner contended that the charge-sheet had been in respect to both crime numbers and the court took the cognizance and started trial in both cases. Special Public Prosecutor filed an application under Section 311 of the CrPC for calling the witness which was allowed by the trial court. The petitioner also filed an application under the same section for calling some important witnesses in his relation to the cross case vide Crime No. 173/2018 which was dismissed by the trial Court.
Per contra, Respondent contended that in the present case when the petitioner as defence witness already appeared before the trial Court and had given his evidence then calling Investigating Officer would be a futile exercise.
Court’s Assessment
The Court opined that the matter was at the stage of evidence for defence and Section 243 of the CrPC explicitly provides such mechanism that defence can produce his evidence and it nowhere bars the investigating officer of cross-case to appear on behalf of accused in the case in which he is a complainant.
The Court relied on the observation made by the Supreme Court in T. Nagappa v. Y.R. Muralidhar, 2008 SCC OnLine SC 708, and held that an accused had a fundamental right of fair trial enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The Court opined that if the accused intends to bring a witness in his defence without any intention of protracting the trial, then his prayer ought to be allowed.
The Court further held that since the petitioner is accused, and witness had already been recalled by allowing the application of Special Public Prosecutor in relation to the case vide Crime No.171/2018. Therefore, in order to prevent miscarriage of justice, the impugned order of the trial court was quashed, and the trial Court was directed to call the relevant witnesses as sought to be called by the petitioner in his application for deposition on the next date of hearing.
[Veer Singh v. State of M.P., 2024 SCC OnLine MP 349, dated on 09-01-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Siddharth Sijoriya, Advocate
For the Respondent: Rajeev Upadhyay, Public Prosecutor
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