Judgment G.D. Saxena, J. - This revision petition under Section 397/401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 has been preferred by the accused-petitioners against an order dated 9th August 2012 passed in Criminal Case No. 482/2012 by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Joura district Morena (M.P.) framing thereby charges against the petitioners for commission of offence punishable under Section 498-A of I.P.C. (2) Brief facts of the case, just for the decision of this revision petition are that petitioner No.3-Mohar Singh was married to respondent No.2 Anita Singh on 11th February 2009 at Joura district Morena. It is stated that the father of the respondent No.2-Anita offered Cash, gold ornaments and other household property to the bridegroom, but after marriage the car as promised could not be gifted to the bridegroom. This was the reason that for the demand of the car or cost of the same, the respondent No.2 was harassed and treated with cruelty by her in-laws. She was compelled to leave her matrimonial house. At present, she is residing with her parents at Tikamgarh. In such circumstances, the written complaint was sent by her to family settlement Centre of the District Morena but the matrimonial dispute could not be settled despite due efforts. Consequently, the FIR was lodged against the petitioners/accused. After investigation, the charge sheet was filed before the court competent in which the trial is under progress. (3) Learned counsel for the petitioners contended that after filing the petition of divorce by the husband-petitioner No.3 and on service of notice, she forwarded a written complaint on the basis of which, an FIR against the petitioners was lodged by the police. It is submitted by the counsel that the respondent No.2 is serving as contract teacher as class-1 at Banda district Tikamgarh and is residing with her parents at Tikamgarh. She voluntarily deserted the petitioner No.3 and also misbehaved him and his family members. It is denied that any cruelty in connection with the non-fulfillment of promise was meted out to the respondent/wife. It is thus submitted that no such treatment as alleged was given either by her husband or her in-laws and a false FIR has been registered against the petitioners. Hence, it is prayed that the order passed by the trial court framing alleged charge against the petitioners is liable to be set aside and the revision deserves to be allowed.
It is thus submitted that no such treatment as alleged was given either by her husband or her in-laws and a false FIR has been registered against the petitioners. Hence, it is prayed that the order passed by the trial court framing alleged charge against the petitioners is liable to be set aside and the revision deserves to be allowed. (4) Per contra, the submission put forth by the learned Public Prosecutor appearing for the respondent No.1/State is that the learned trial Judge has rightly framed the charge which is based on the charge sheet papers and other documents filed by the prosecution. It is submitted that the petitioners on trial are at liberty to prove their defence. Hence, prayed for dismissal of the revision. (5) Heard the learned counsel appearing for the parties and also perused the copies of charge-sheet papers and the law on which the petitioners tried to place emphasis in support of his arguments. (6) Now, this court has to examine the legality, propriety and correctness of the order challenged in the revision. (7) At this stage, it would be useful to reproduce Section 498-A of I.P.C., which is as under :- "498-A. Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty.- Whoever, being the husband or the relative of the husband of a woman, subjects such woman to cruelty shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine.
Explanation.-For the purposes of this section, 'cruelty' means : (a) any willful conduct which is of such a nature as is likely to drive the woman to commit suicide or to cause grave injury or danger to life, limb or health (whether mental or physical) of the woman; or (b) harassment of the woman where such harassment is with a view to coercing her or any person related to her to meet any unlawful demand for any property or valuable security or is on account of failure by her or any person related to her to meet such demand." (8) Now, coming to the case at hand, on perusal of the evidence on record, the FIR lodged and case diary statements of the witnesses filed with charge sheet, it reveals that the husband of the respondent No.2-wife and his other relatives/accused after marriage caused harassment to her in connection with non-fulfillment of promise made by her father at the time of marriage for gifting the car and even sometimes they used to manhandle her. The defence of the husband-petitioner No.3 that the respondent No.2/complainant being employed as contract teacher at Banda, is living at her parental house and she left her matrimonial house as per her own free will and she also treated badly with her husband and his family members and that when the petitioner No.3-husband had filed a petition before the competent court, after coming to know with an ulterior motive, she sent written complaint and got registered the FIR by taking false reasons of harassment for demand of dowry, which obviously may be proved at proper stage of trial. It is settled in law that at the time of framing of the charges, the probative value of the material on record cannot be looked into, and the material brought on record by the prosecution has to be accepted as true. See the case of P. Vijayan Vs. State of Kerala ( AIR 2010 SC 663 ), in which the following observations have been made as under :- "If two views are possible and one of them gives rise to suspicion only, as distinguished from grave suspicion, the Trial Judge will be empowered to discharge the accused and at this stage he is not to see whether the trial will end in conviction or acquittal.
Further, the words "not sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused" clearly show that the Judge is not a mere Post Office to frame the charge at the behest of the prosecution, but has to exercise his judicial mind to the facts of the case in order to determine whether a case for trial has been made out by the prosecution. In assessing this fact, it is not necessary for the Court to enter into the pros and cons of the matter or into a weighing and balancing of evidence and probabilities which is really the function of the Court, after the trial starts. At the stage of Section 227, the Judge has merely to sift the evidence in order to find out whether or not there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused. In other words, the sufficiency of ground would take within its fold the nature of the evidence recorded by the police or the documents produced before the Court which ex facie disclose that there are suspicious circumstances against the accused so as to frame a charge against him.” (9) Further the scope of Section 227 of the Code was considered by the Hon. Apex court in the case of State of Bihar v. Ramesh Singh (1977) 4 -SCC 39: (AIR 1977 SC2018), wherein following has been observed:- "......Strong suspicion against the accused, if the matter remains in the region of suspicion, cannot take the place of proof of his guilt at the conclusion of the trial. But at the initial stage if there is a strong suspicion which leads the Court to think that there is ground for presuming that the accused has committed an offence then it is not open to the Court to say that there is no sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused. The presumption of the guilt of the accused which is to be drawn at the initial stage is not in the sense of the law governing the trial of criminal cases in France where the accused is presumed to be guilty unless the contrary is proved. But it is only for the purpose of deciding prima facie whether the Court should proceed with the trial or not.
But it is only for the purpose of deciding prima facie whether the Court should proceed with the trial or not. If the evidence which the Prosecutor proposes to adduce to prove the guilt of the accused even if fully accepted before it is challenged in cross-examination or rebutted by the defence evidence, if any, cannot show that the accused committed the offence, then there will be no sufficient ground for proceeding with the trial.....” (10) Moreover, at the stage of framing of charges, the High court should not exercise its power of revision by way of quashing the charges by confining its attention only to the recitals in the FIR as was held in Tej Bir Vs. State of Haryana, (2011) 11 SCC 556 . (11) Therefore, in view of the settled legal position, noted above, this court is fully convinced that the trial court is correct in law in coming to the conclusion that a case for framing charge against the petitioners has been made out. (12) Consequently, the instant petition fails and is dismissed