BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court has held that a Magistrate, while taking cognizance of an offence, must apply his mind and cannot act mechanically.
The court made these observations after learning that while assessing a case a Magistrate had used a cyclostyled form and only filled up the blanks. It remarked that it was a ‘highly reprehensible’ practice.
Justice A.N. Venugopala Gowda passed the judgment on a criminal petition put forth by an advocate in Koppal district. He and three of his associates were seeking to quash the dowry harassment case against them by the wife of the advocate.
The advocate for the petitioners had contended that the Magistrate used ‘a typed proforma and filled up the blank spaces’. “The sheristedar, who has put up the order sheet, has filled up the sections. In the latter part, appearing below, which is that of the learned Magistrate, the handwriting as the same as in the first part i.e., of the Sheristedar. The Magistrate has merely subscribed his short signature and the same is apparent,” contended the petitioners.
The court, in its judgment dated July 21, stated that the use of printed forms for taking cognisance of the offence and use of a stereotyped form, was deprecated by High Court of Karnataka in Crl.P. No.194/1996 and Crl.P. No.129/1997, decided on August 14, 1997 and March 12, 1999 respectively.
Citing one of the orders by the Supreme Court, the High Court has also said that it is clear that the process involves taking judicial notice of certain facts, which constitute an offence and hence there has to be application of mind while initiating criminal proceedings against a person, which is a serious matter.
"Having perused the impugned order passed by the Magistrate, I am satisfied that there is no indication of application of mind by the learned Magistrate in taking cognisance and while issuing summons to the petitioners," the High Court ordered and quashed the summons issued against the petitioners in the case.
Though no speaking order is required at this stage of application of the provision of S.190/204 Cr.P.C., there must be sufficient indication of application of mind by the Magistrate to the facts constituting the commission of offence so as to proceed against the offender(s), since summoning of the accused in a criminal case is a serious matter. This may even curtail the liberty of the person, the High Court said, while adding that in such circumstances, the Court once again deprecates the practice of filling up blanks in the already-typed format by the Magistrate.
The latest development is that the matter has now been remitted to the Magistrate for fresh consideration and the High Court said that if required, further action shall be taken in accordance with law.
