P. N. Bakshi, J. - (1.) THESE are three connected Criminal revisions. Criminal Revision No. 515 of 1979 has been filed by Rais Ahmad. Criminal Revision No. 536 of 1979 has been filed by Satish Kumar Gupta, Babu Lal and Vinod Kumar Arya, and Criminal Revision No. 539 of 1979 has been filed by Shri Ram. Against all these applicants Sessions Trial No. 73 of 1977 is pending before the Additional Sessions Judge, Gyanpur. The public prosecutor applied to that court on 3-8-1979 and again on 8-2-1979 for obtaining consent to withdraw the prosecution against the applicants. THESE applications were rejected by the Assistant Sessions Judge, Gyanpur, vide his order dated 2nd March, 1971. Hence these revisions.
(2.) THE facts of the case are that the Sub-Divisional Magistrate Sri Fateh Bahadur Singh along with other officials had gone in the evening of 29th October, 1974 to Gopiganj in a Jeep. When he entered the town some persons including Satish Kumar Gupta came infront of the Jeep. THEy surrounded it and started shouting slogans. THE Jeep proceeded to the Government Dispensary Gopiganj to join the farewell function which was to be held on the eve of transfer of Dr. A. N. Singh. THE prosecution case is that after the farewell party was over about 150-200 persons including the accused applicants came there and started making exhortations and shouting slogans. THEy entered the compound of the Government Hospital and shouted "Saley ko jan say mardalo". THEreafter they started throwing pieces of stones on the persons who had assembled there and also on the Jeep and the government building. It was a moon-lit night. A patromax was burning. Satish Kumar Gupta son of Panna Lal Chairman, Vinod Kumar, Rais Ahmad, Bachcha, Shiva Ram Gupta and Sri Ram Jaiswal were recognised. Babu Lal was arrested on the spot. As a result of the pelting of stones, several persons were injured and parts of the Jeep damaged. Laudhar, a peon of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, constable Ram Prasad Singh, Daya Shankar Srivastava, Accountant Government Hospital Gopiganj and Siya Ram Dubey received injuries. THEy were medically examined. Constable Ram Prasad Singh had two injuries on his forehead. Siya Ram Dubey received injuries on his upper right face and on his right eye. Daya Shanker Srivastava also received injuries on his head. A report of the incident was lodged at police station Gopiganj. THE names of the seven accused applicants including the applicants, were mentioned in the report and also the names of the witnesses, who had seen the occurrence and recognised the culprits. After investigation charge- sheets were submitted against the five accused persons, who had filed the instant revision applications in this court. On 28th September, 1977 the Judicial Officer, Gyanpur committed the case to the court of Sessions against the applicants who are standing their trial for offences under Secs. 147, 333, 336, 452, 307, 308 and 427 IPC. It appears that Sri Radhey Shyam Srivastava, Asstt. District Government Counsel (Criminal) filed an application on 27th July, 1978 seeking consent of the court for withdrawal of the prosecution. Paragraph 2 of this application was to the effect that the District Government Counsel (Criminal) had been directed by the Government to withdraw the prosecution since it has been commenced due to political bickerings. In obedience of the orders of the Government he filed this application. It appears from the impugned order that the Government Counsel had also applied on two earlier occasions for granting in time to secure instructions of the Government regarding withdrawal of the case. It appears that subsequently Sri Badri Prasad Yadav was specially appointed Assistant Government Counsel (Criminal) and he filed another application on 8-2-1979 in which he detailed the reasons on the basis of which it was prayed that consent of withdrawal for prosecution be accorded. I have carefully perused this application. In Paragraph 4 it is mentioned that except for Satish no parentage or address of the accused have been mentioned in the first information report. In Para 5 it is mentioned that Dr. A. N. Singh has mentioned in his statement under Section 161 CrPC that he did not know the name of any person mentioned in the First Information Report. In Para 6 it is mentioned that Shiva Ram and Bachcha have not been challaned by the police of Gopiganj. Para 7 is to the effect that the arrest of the accused except Satish Chand and Babu Lal seems to be based on pressure and imagination. Para 8 runs to the effect that no offence under Section 307 is made out because all the injuries are simple in nature. Paragraph 9 states the absence of motive. Paragraph 10 mentioned that it is not clear from the First Information Report that the crowd had intention of murder. Then thereafter in Para 11 it is mentioned that there is no reasonable possibility of the accused being convicted of the charges. Para 12 states that the evidence collected during investigation is meagre and most of the witnesses would not be able to support the prosecution case. Para 13 is to the effect that it would not be in the interest of administration of justice to proceed with the case. These circumstances which have been mentioned in the application dated 8/2/1979 have been considered by the Additional Sessions Judge, Gyapur. He has come to the following conclusion : "In the instant case an officer in charge of a sub-division was tried to be made the victim and in an attempt to commit his murder the huge mob had thrown stones etc. Admittedly, one of the accused persons was arrested on the spot and the others were recognised. The government property was damaged. I am unable to understand as to what was the politics involved in making these assaults. I do not consider the evidence as given in the case diary meagre or insufficient. The injuries are on vital parts of the body. In my opinion his does not appear to be a fit case for allowing the Public Prosecutor to withdraw the case."
(3.) THE principles which guide 'the discretion of the Court to give consent for withdrawal of prosecution under Section 494 CrPC (old) equivalent to Section 321 CrPC (new) has been the subject matter of a number of cases of the Supreme Court. In THE State of Bihar v. Ram Naresh Pandey, AIR 1957 SC 389 Hon'ble Jagannadhadas, J. of the Supreme Court has observed as follows : "THE section is an enabling one and vests in the public prosecutor the discretion to apply to the Court for its can- sent to withdraw from the prosecution of any person. THE consent, if granted, has to be followed up by his discharge or acquittal, as the case may be. THE section gives no indication as to the grounds on which the Public Prosecutor may make the application or the considerations on which the court is to grant its consent. THEre can be no doubt, however, that the resultant order, on the granting of the consent, being an order of 'discharge' or 'acquittal' would attract the applicability of correction by the High Court under Sections 435, 436 and 439 or 417 Criminal PC. THE function of the court, therefore, in granting its consent may well be taken to be a judicial function. It follows that in granting the consent the Court must exercise a judicial discretion. But it does not follow that the discretion is to be exercised only with reference to material gathered by the Judicial method.......... THE judicial function, therefore, implicit in the exercise of the judicial discretion for granting the consent would normally mean that the court has ,to satisfy itself that the executive function of the Public Prosecutor has not been improperly exercised or that it is not an attempt to interfere with the normal course of justice for illegitimate reasons or purposes.......... This is not to say that a consent is to be lightly given on the application of the Public Prosecutor without a careful and proper scrutiny of the grounds on which the application for consent is made..... such evidence as may already have been recorded by the time the application is made is not to be looked into and considered in such cases, in order to determine the impropriety of the withdrawal as amounting to abuse or an improper interference with the normal course of justice." In State of Orissa v. Chandrika Mahapatra, AIR 1977 SC 903, Justice P. N. Bhagwati of the Supreme Court observed as follows :- "It is not sufficient for the Public Prosecutor merely to say that it is not expedient to proceed with the prosecution. He has to make out some ground which would show that the prosecution is sought to be withdrawn because inter alia the prosecution may not be able to produce sufficient evidence to sustain the charge or that the prosecution does not appear to be well founded or that there are other circumstances which clearly show that the object of administration of justice would not be advanced or furthered by going on with the prosecution. The ultimate guiding consideration must always be the interest of administration of justice and that is the touchstone on which the question must be determined whether the prosecution should be allowed to be withdrawn. The paramount consideration in all these cases must be the interest of administration of justice. No hard and fast rule can be laid down nor can any categories of cases be defined in which consent should be granted or refused. It must ultimately depend on the facts and circumstances of each case in the light of what is necessary in order to promote the ends of justice, because the objective of every judicial process must be the attainment of justice. Now, in the present case, the application made by the Public Prosecutor clearly shows that the incident had arisen out of rivalry between two trade unions and since the date of the incident calm an peaceful atmosphere prevailed in the industrial undertaking. In these circumstances, the State felt that it would not be conducive to the interest of justice to continue the prosecution against the respondents, since the prosecution with the possibility of conviction of the respondents would rouse feelings of bitterness and antagonism and disturb the calm and peaceful atmosphere prevailing in the industrial undertaking. We cannot forget that ultimately every offence has a social or economic cause behind it and if the State feels that the elimination or eradication of the social or economic cause of the crime would be better served by not proceeding with the prosecution the State should clearly be at liberty to withdraw from the prosecution. We are, therefore, of the view, that in the; present case the learned Sessions Judge; was right in granting consent to the withdrawal of the prosecution and the High Court was in error in setting aside the order of the learned Sessions Judge." In Balwant Singh v. State of Bihar, AIR 1977 SC 2265 it was observed by Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court as follows : "The sole consideration for the public prosecutor when he decides to withdraw from a prosecution is the larger factor of the administration of justice not political favours nor party pressures nor like concerns. Of course, the interest of public justice being the paramount consideration they may transcend and overflow the legal justice of the particular litigation........................He cannot command where he can only commend ............................For justice ordinarily demands that every case must reach its destination, not interrupted en route. If some policy consideration bearing on the administration of justice justifies withdrawal, the court may accord permission, not if no public policy bearing on the administration of justice is involved. We think that surrender of discretion by the public prosecutor and the Magistrate are unfortunate. The court has to be vigilant when a case has been pending before it and not succumb to executive suggestion made in the form if application for withdrawal with a bunch of papers tacked on. Moreover, the State should not stultify the court by first stating that there is a true case to be tried and then make a volte-face to the effect that on a second investigation the case has been discovered to be false." ;