Law Intellect India Updates | Supreme Court: Providing lucidity to the procedure relating to finality of charges, the 2-judge bench of Hon’ble Dr. B.S. Chauhan and S.A. Bobde, JJ held that filing of charge sheet and taking cognizance has nothing to do with the finality of charges, as charges framed after the cognizance is taken by the court, can be altered/amended/changed and any charge can be added at any stage upto the stage of conviction in view of the provisions of Section 216 of Cr.P.C. However, the Court held that if the Trial Court exercises it’s power under Sections 228/251 of Cr.P.C, the accused is entitled to an opportunity of show cause/hearing as required under the provisions of Section 217 of Cr. P.C. In the present case, where the appellant was kidnapped and illegally detained allegedly by 7 persons, the police filed the charge sheet only against 2 persons and that too only for offences punishable under Sections 323 and 343 of Penal Code, 1860 when serious allegations of criminal intimidation, threats, terrorising and causing physical harm were leveled against them and the matter was disposed of by the Trial Court hastily within a day of submission of guilt by the accused. The High Court of Rajasthan also dismissed the application of the appellant stating that the appellant neither challenged the order of taking cognizance nor raised any objection at the time of reading over of the charges to the accused. Taking note of these facts, the Court held that the Trial Court was wrong in not giving any opportunity to the victim to raise any grievance and the High Court should have taken this fact into consideration before dismissing the application. [Girraj Prasad Meena v. State of Rajasthan, Criminal Appeal No. 1547 of 2013, decided on September 30, 2013] - Ref-SCC
Posted on: Sat, 05 Oct 2013 12:04:13 +0000
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