New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has come down heavily on an Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) and the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) for acting in "haste" and "forgetting" to look into merits before summonses were issued in a criminal case.
"The order of CMM summoning them (accused) is wholly illegal and unwarranted. Both the Additional Sessions Judge and the CMM in haste have forgotten to look at the merits of the matter.
"Summoning an accused is a serious matter. It cannot be done lightly," Justice Mukta Gupta said. Justice Gupta set aside the orders of the CMM, passed on July 23 and 25, 2011, by which summonses were issued to four persons, including a doctor, in a criminal case.
The court's decision came on a reference sent by the ASJ seeking correction of "erroneous" orders passed by the CMM.
The reference pertained to a case lodged by a girl alleging that one Deepak made "forcible sexual relations" with her after becoming her friend and pressurized her to abort their child as a precondition to marry her.
Later, despite her refusal to undergo abortion, Deepak had allegedly taken her to a hospital where the foetus was aborted on March 5, 2011.
A chargesheet was filed against Deepak and gynaecologist Ranjana Gupta. The probe report also had names of Saroj and Mukesh, parents of Deepak, and his brother Ashu.
After taking note of the chargesheet, the CMM first summoned Deepak only and sent the case to the ASJ for trial on June 30, 2011.
The ASJ took note of the alleged lapse and asked the CMM to clarify why the doctor and three others were not summoned.
The CMM took cognizance only against Deepak and recorded no reason as to why he was disagreeing with the chargesheet and not summoning Ranjana Gupta, the High Court, in its judgement, said.
Later, the CMM termed the mistake as "inadvertent" and took note of a supplementary chargesheet "for correction" and took cognizance of offences against Saroj, Mukesh, Ashu and Ranjana Gupta.
The ASJ then sent "a second reference on August 2, 2011, (to the HC) pointing out the impropriety of the learned CMM in accepting the supplementary chargesheet and taking cognizance thereon when the matter was sub-judice before this court."
He said "the error committed by the CMM could have been corrected only by this Court (High Court) in exercise of its inherent power under Section 482 CrPC and the CMM could not have summoned the four accused as there was no procedure prescribed for accepting a correction in the chargesheet and do indirectly what could not have been done directly."
The High Court criticised both the trial judges saying "it is, thus, evident that the reference of Additional Sessions Judge seeking summoning of Saroj, Mukesh and Ashu from this court and the order of the CMM summoning them is wholly illegal and unwarranted."
Justice Gupta said the order of reference of the ASJ asking the High Court "to correct the order of the CMM to summon Ranjana Gupta also suffers from lack of application of mind."
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