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Issues: (i) Whether, on consideration of the documents under Section 173 and the material then available, the charge against the accused was groundless within the meaning of Section 251-A of the Criminal Procedure Code; (ii) Whether the notifications, circular and deviation order relating to the manufacture of dhotis negatived criminal liability, including mens rea, for the alleged contravention of the control order.
Issue (i): Whether, on consideration of the documents under Section 173 and the material then available, the charge against the accused was groundless within the meaning of Section 251-A of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Analysis: The provision required the Magistrate to consider all the documents and hear both sides before deciding whether the charge was groundless or whether there was ground for presuming that the accused had committed an offence. The power at the charge stage was judicial and not mechanical. If on the existing material no ground existed for presuming commission of the offence, the Magistrate was bound to discharge the accused.
Conclusion: The order of discharge was within jurisdiction and was not liable to be set aside merely because the matter could have been debated further at trial.
Issue (ii): Whether the notifications, circular and deviation order relating to the manufacture of dhotis negatived criminal liability, including mens rea, for the alleged contravention of the control order.
Analysis: The notification of 2 November 1964 permitted a mill that had been traditionally manufacturing the relevant variety for at least three years prior to October 1964 to continue manufacture on application for a deviation order. The later circular of 30 October 1964 and the eventual deviation order showed that the mill's case fell within that protective scheme. On that material, the Court held that the appellants had no guilty mind and that the prosecution was unsustainable on the existing record.
Conclusion: The alleged contravention did not disclose mens rea and the prosecution was groundless.
Final Conclusion: The discharge of the accused was restored because the material then available did not justify framing charges for the alleged offences.
Ratio Decidendi: At the stage of framing charge under Section 251-A of the Criminal Procedure Code, the Magistrate must discharge the accused if the available material does not furnish a ground for presuming commission of the offence, and where the controlling notifications and subsequent deviation order negate guilty intent, prosecution for contravention is groundless.
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