SANJAY GANDHI versus UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

Citation: [1978] 2 S.C.R. 861 · Decided: 14-02-1978 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: V.R. KRISHNA IYER · Disposal: Rejected

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Judgment (excerpt)

861 
SANJAY GANDHI 
v. 
UNION OF INDIA AND ORS. 
February 14, 1978 
[V. R. KRISHNA IYER AND JASWANT SINGH, JJ.J 
Criminal Procedure Code (Act II of 1974), 1973 Ss. 193, 208, 209, 226 and 
227-Duties of the Committal Court under the new code when offence 
is 
.triable exclusivtly by the Court of Sessions, clarified. 
A time schedule for the committal proceedings in RC 2/1977-CIA-l on 
the ftle of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Delhi was•fixed by this Court 
on 2-2-1978. 
On the refusal by Committal Court to grant him further lime 
A 
B 
to inspect the records u/s 208 of the Crl.P.C., the petitioner, a co-accused. 
C 
moved an application for modification of this Court's order dated 2-2-78 
on the ground that he was not a party before this Court in the_ earlier pro-
·ceedings. 
Rejecting the petition, the Court 
HELD : 1. Where the offence is triable exclusively by the 
Court 
of 
·session, the Committing Magistrate has no power to discharge the accused. 
Nor bas he power to take oral evidence save where a s.peci:fic provision like 
S. 306 enjoins. Hence cross examination by the aocused IS out of boandl far 
the Magistrate save in the case of approvers. No Examination-in-Chief, no 
cro<>s examination. [862 Fl 
2. It is not open to the Committal Court to launch on a process 
of 
·satisfying itself that a prima facie case has been made i.out on the merits. The 
jurisdiction 
once 
vested 
in 
the 
Committing 
Mag!strate 
under 
the 
earlier 
Code 
having 
been 
eliminated 
now 
under 
the 
present 
code, 
to 
hold 
that 
he 
can 
go 
into 
the 
merits 
even 
for 
a 
prima facie satisfaction is to frustrate Parliament's purpose in re-moulding 
S. 207-A 
1(old code) into its pr_esent non-discretionary 
shape. Expedition 
intended by this change will be defeated successfully, if interpretatively it is 
held that a dress rehearsal of a trial before the Magistrate is in order. The 
narrow inspection hole through which the Committee Magistrate· has to look 
at the case limits him merely to ascertain whether the case, as disclosed by 
the police-report, appears to him to show an offence triable solely by the 
·Court of Session. If, by error, a wrong section of the Penal Code is quoted 
be may look into that aspect. [862 G-H, 863 A-Bl 
D 
E 
F 
Iif made-up facts unsupported by any material are reported by the police 
and a Sessions offence is made to appear, it is perfectly open to the Sessions 
Court u/s 227 Crl.P.C. to discharge the accused. That provision takes care 
of grievance that the prosecution may stick a label 
mentionilflg a Sessions 
offence and the accused will then be denied a valuable opportunity to prove 
his ex-facto innocence. [863 B-C] 
G 
ORIGJNAL JURISDICTION: Civil Miscellaneous Petition Nos. 3185-
3188 of 1978. 
A. N. Mui/a and D. Goburdhan for the Petitioner. 
R. [ethamalani, S. B. Jaishinghanl and R. N. Sachthey for the Union 
H 
of India. 
Parveen Kumar for Respondent No. 2. 
862 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
[1978] 2 S·C·R· 
A 
The Order of the Court was delivered by 
KRISHNA IYER, J. No party to a criminal trial has a vested right 
in slow motion justice since the soul of social justice in this area of 
law is prompt trial followed by verdict of innocence or sentence. Since 
a fair trial is not a limping hearing, we view with grave concern any 
judicial insouciance which lengthens litigation to limits of exasperation. 
B This key thought prompted us on an earlier occasion to fix a reason-
able, yet not hasty, time schedule for the committal proceedings in 
R.C.2/1977-CIA-I on the file of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, 
Delhi, 
and this was done viably and with consent of the parties then 
before us (one of whom is a principal accused represented by Senior 
Counsel). We are satisfied that the Magistrate has acted in the spirit 
of this Court's order as indeed he was bound to, in refusing time. 
c !Now, anomer accused, who was not a party to the earlier proceeding 
in this Court, has come up with a petition praying for modification of 
the order fixing the time-table for, and injecting a sense of tempo into, 
the hearing process and committal, on the score that it hurts him by 
denying sufficient scope to examine the allegedly voluminous records 
produced by the police running into around 20,000 pages. 
He further 
urges, through Shri A. N. Mulla, his learned counsel, that he wishes 
D 
to cross-examine the witnes~es for the prosecution and to argue that 
no prima facie case has been made out for comm

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