Supreme Court voices concern over misuse of Sec 216 CrPC to derail trial

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed its serious concern over misuse of Section 216 of the Criminal Procedure Code related to the power of court to alter charge before judgment is pronounced, saying repeated filing of such applications is highly deplorable and must be dealt with sternly.

"Unfortunately, such applications are being filed in the trial courts sometimes in ignorance of law and sometimes deliberately to delay the proceedings. Once such applications though untenable are filed, the trial courts have no alternative but to decide them, and then again such orders would be challenged before the higher courts, and the whole criminal trial would get derailed," a bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma said.

The bench pointed out Section 216, CrPC is an enabling provision which allowed the court to alter or add to any charge at any time before judgment is pronounced, and if any alternation or addition to a charge is made, the court has to follow the procedure as contained therein.

"Section 216 does not give any right to the accused to file a fresh application seeking his discharge after the charge is framed by the court, more particularly when his application seeking discharge under Section 227 has already been dismissed," the court said.

The court allowed an appeal by K Ravi, also known as ADMK Ravi, against the Madras High Court's "an extremely unusual and untenable judgment" of 2017, discharging Baskar, an accused in murder of his brother in 2009 during an attack by a group of people to prevent him from filing nomination papers AIDMK party office at Dharampuri.

The court noted the accused had miserably failed to get himself

discharged in the first round of litigation, still however he filed

another vexatious application seeking modification of charge under Section 216 of CrPC to derail the criminal proceedings.

Though sessions court dismissed his application, the apex court said, "The High Court, on an absolutely extraneous consideration and in utter disregard of the settled legal position, allowed the revision application".

The bench set aside the HC's order finding it as "ex facie illegal, untenable and dehors the material on record" with Rs 50,000 cost to be paid by the accused to the appellant for filing frivolous and

untenable applications one after the other misusing the process of law.

The bench also said the court exercising revisional jurisdiction under Section 397 CrPC should be extremely circumspect in interfering with the order framing the charge, and could not have interfered with the order passed by the trial court dismissing the application for modification of the charge under Section 216 CrPC, which order otherwise would fall in the category of an interlocutory order.

The court explained the scope of interference and exercise of jurisdiction under Section 397 CrPC is extremely limited.

"Apart from the fact that subsection 2 of Section 397 prohibits the court from exercising the powers of revision, even the powers under sub-section 1 thereof should be exercised very sparingly and only where the decision under challenge is grossly erroneous, or there is non-compliance of the provisions of law, or the finding recorded by the trial court is based on no evidence, or material evidence is ignored or judicial discretion is exercised arbitrarily or perversely by framing the charge," the bench said.