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TMI Blog2001 (8) TMI 1385X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ns in respect of the said incident for various offences including Section 302 read with Section 149 IPC and Section 3(2) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (for short the SC/ST Act). The case started in January 1992 before the court of the Additional Sessions Judge, Dhar (M.P.) which was the specified court as per Section 14 of the said Act. The court framed charges against all the eleven persons for the aforementioned offences and proceeded with the trial. In the words of the Division Bench of the High Court after a protracted trial for about five years the eleven persons were convicted under Sections 148, 323, 302/149 of the IPC and sentenced to various punishments including imprisonment for life, as per the judgment pronounced on 23.8.1996. All the eleven convicted persons filed appeal before the High Court of Madhya Pradesh. It was during the pendency of the said appeal that Supreme Court decided the case in Gangula Ashok vs. State of A.P. {2000 (2) SCC 504} in which it was held that committal proceedings are necessary for a specified court under the SC/ST Act to take cognizance of the offences to be tried. But the legal position whic ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... cial Court under the SC/ST Act is essentially a Court of Sessions which can take cognizance of offence in accordance with provisions of the Code. In other words the complaint or charge-sheet cannot be laid directly before the Special Court under the Act. It must be remembered that in the afore-cited case the accused moved the High Court for quashing the charge on the ground that charge- sheet was laid directly before the specified court. Such motion was made before the trial started in that case. The High Court accepted his contention and directed the charge- sheet and connected papers to be returned to the police who was to present the same before a magistrate for the purpose of committal to the Special Court. The said view of the High Court was upheld as legally correct by this Court in Gangula Ashok (supra). The present is a case where accused did not raise any question, when they were heard at the time of framing the charge, that the court cannot proceed without committal made by a magistrate. Nor did they raise such a plea at any stage either before or after the evidence was recorded by the trial court. The convicted persons thought of raising such a contention only when th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... by the Single Judge, that it means all the witnesses once examined in full should be called back again, and the whole chief- examination, cross-examination, re-examination and questioning of the accused under section 313 of the Code, hearing arguments, then examination of defence witnesses further, again final arguments to be heard and preparation of judgment once again. The very object underlined in Section 465 of the Code is that if on any technical ground any party to the criminal proceedings is aggrieved he must raise the objection thereof at the earliest stage. If he did not raise it at the earliest stage he cannot be heard on that aspect after the whole trial is over. Shri Sushil Kumar Jain, learned counsel for the respondents/accused submitted that the said decision, on the facts, cannot be applied because in that case the specified court under the SC/St Act had taken cognizance of the offence of Section 376 IPC along with Section 3 of the said Act only after the said case was committed to that court. But while framing the charge the court dropped the offence under the SC/ST Act and the IPC offence alone was included in the charge and finally the court convicted the accus ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... n the ground that the proceedings were erroneous. The court of appeal or revision has to examine specifically whether such erroneous steps had in fact occasioned failure of justice. Then alone the proceedings can be set aside. Thus the entire purport of the provisions subsumed in Chapter XXXV is to save the proceedings linked with such erroneous steps, unless the error is of such a nature that it had occasioned failure of justice. We have to examine Section 465(1) of the Code in the above context. It is extracted below: Subject to the provisions hereinbefore contained, no finding, sentence or order passed by a Court of competent jurisdiction shall be reversed or altered by a court of appeal, confirmation or revision on account of any error, omission or irregularity in the complaint, summons, warrant, proclamation, order, judgment or other proceedings before or during trial or in any inquiry or other proceedings under this Code, or any error, or irregularity in any sanction for the prosecution, unless in the opinion of that court, a failure of justice has in fact been occasioned thereby. A reading of the section makes it clear that the error, omission or irregularity in the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... any witness at all. The magistrate in such cases has only to commit the cases involving offences exclusively triable by the court of sessions. Perhaps it would have been possible for an accused to raise a contention before 1973 that skipping committal proceedings had deprived him of the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses in the committal court and that had caused prejudice to his defence. But even that is not available to an accused after 1973 in cases charge-sheeted by the police. We repeatedly asked the learned counsel for the accused to tell us what advantage the accused would secure if the case is sent back to the magistrate court merely for the purpose of retransmission of the records to the sessions court through a committal order. We did not get any satisfactory answer to the above query put to the counsel. Shri Sushil Kumar Jain made his last attempt by contending that Section 465 is restricted to any findings, sentence or order passed by a court of competent jurisdiction and that a special court under the SC/ST Act which is essentially a sessions court would have remained incompetent until the case is committed to it. In support of the said contention learned counse ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ore the magistrate. Even this could be done only because the court has competence to deal with the case. Sometimes that court may have to hear arguments to decide that preliminary issue. Hence the argument advanced by the learned counsel on the strength of the aforesaid decisions is of no avail. The bar against taking cognizance of certain offences or by certain courts cannot govern the question whether the Court concerned is a Court of competent jurisdiction, e.g. Courts are debarred from taking cognizance of certain offences without sanction of certain authorities. If a Court took cognizance of such offences, which later found to be without valid sanction, it would not become the test or standard for deciding whether that court was a Court of competent jurisdiction. It is now well settled that if the question of sanction was not raised at the earliest opportunity the proceedings would remain unaffected on account of want of sanction. This is another example to show that the condition precedent for taking cognizance is not the standard to determine whether the Court concerned is a Court of competent jurisdiction. We conclude that the trial held by the sessions court reaching ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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