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Issues: (i) Whether, under section 494 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Court may grant consent to withdrawal from prosecution before evidence is recorded where the Public Prosecutor states that the available material is meagre or unreliable. (ii) Whether an application for withdrawal under section 494 can be entertained at the committal stage in a case triable by a Court of Session.
Issue (i): Whether, under section 494 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Court may grant consent to withdrawal from prosecution before evidence is recorded where the Public Prosecutor states that the available material is meagre or unreliable.
Analysis: Section 494 confers an enabling power on the Public Prosecutor to seek withdrawal with the consent of the Court. The Court's function in granting consent is judicial, but it is not confined to deciding the matter on evidence formally recorded in court. The provision does not require the Court to undertake a prima facie trial or preliminary inquiry before consenting. What is required is a careful judicial scrutiny to ensure that the prosecutorial discretion is not improperly exercised, is not for illegitimate purposes, and does not amount to an abuse of the normal course of justice. Where the available material already indicates that conviction is unlikely, the Court may consider that material and act upon it.
Conclusion: The Court may validly grant consent to withdrawal before recording evidence if satisfied that the request is a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion and not an abuse of process; the contrary view was rejected.
Issue (ii): Whether an application for withdrawal under section 494 can be entertained at the committal stage in a case triable by a Court of Session.
Analysis: The language of section 494 is wide. Its reference to cases tried by jury and to other cases before judgment does not restrict its operation to the trial stage alone. The distinction between inquiry and trial does not limit the section so as to exclude the committal stage. The legislative history of the provision shows that it was intended to operate broadly and to depend on the stage of the proceedings, namely whether discharge or acquittal would follow, and not on a rigid formal separation between inquiry and trial. There is no basis for reading into the section a prohibition against withdrawal at the preliminary inquiry stage in a Sessions case.
Conclusion: An application for withdrawal under section 494 is maintainable at the committal stage and is not confined to the trial stage before the Sessions Court.
Final Conclusion: The order of the High Court was set aside and the Magistrate's order consenting to withdrawal and discharging the accused was restored, on the basis that section 494 permits withdrawal at the inquiry stage and does not require prior recording of evidence in such a case.
Ratio Decidendi: Section 494 of the Code of Criminal Procedure confers a broad judicially supervised discretion to consent to withdrawal from prosecution at any appropriate stage before judgment, including the committal stage, and the Court need not insist on recorded evidence where the available material shows that the withdrawal is a proper and bona fide exercise of prosecutorial discretion.
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