TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (1) TMI 15
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....s to him fixing the next date for appearance of the said accused-respondent No. 1 and also for his examination under Section 251 of the Code of Criminal Procedure [for short, the Code]. 3. Later on, the respondent No. 1 appeared and he was released on bail. He thereafter filed an application on 22.06.2022 praying for his discharge from the case challenging the maintainability of the proceeding on the ground that he was not a managing partner of said 'VIDA Engineering Company Ltd.', rather, he was the sole proprietor of the same and in said company there is no existence of any such partnership. He also took the plea that in the year 2013 a cheque book containing some signed cheques were lost from his office located at Belonia. Therefore, the matter was duly informed to the bank authority with a request to close the account. He also asserted that there was no relation or no correspondence, no documents exchanged between the parties and no purchase order was ever issued by him to the complainant or to their Firm to procure any brick. 4. Learned trial Court after hearing the parties on the said petition finally allowed the same on 03.12.2024 holding that without impleading the ju....
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.... the Magistrate makes over the case for inquiry or trial to another Magistrate under Section 192 of the Code. 11. Section 201 deals with the procedure where the complaint is made to a Magistrate who is not competent to take congnizance of the offence. 12. Section 202 of CrPC deals with the postponement of issue of process. As per the said provision, any Magistrate, on receipt of a complaint of an offence of which he is authorized to take congnizance or which has been made over to him under Section 192, may, if he thinks fit, and shall, in a case where the accused is residing at a place beyond the area in which he exercises his jurisdiction, postpone the issue of process against the accused, and either inquire into the case by himself or direct an investigation to be made by a police officer or by such other person as he thinks fit, for the purpose of deciding whether or not there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused. In said inquiry, the Magistrate may take evidence of witnesses on oath. 13. Section 203 prescribes that if, after considering the statements on oath (if any), of the complainant and of the witnesses and the result of said inquiry or investig....
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.... the Magistrate is satisfied that there is sufficient ground to proceed with the complaint, he can issue process by way of summons under Section 204 of the Code and thereafter there is no scope for the accused to approach the Court by making an application for dismissal of the complaint under Section 203 of the Code on reconsideration of the materials available on record as already the phase of taking decision under Section 203 by the Magistrate is already over. In said Adalat Prasad (supra), another previous decision of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of K.M. Mathew Vrs. State of Kerala, (1992) 1 SCC 217 was held not to denote a good law as in said case it was held that Magistrate had the power to drop the proceeding or rescind the process even it was issued under Section 204 of the Code on reconsideration of the complaint on the ground that there was no offence for which accused could be tried. Even, another three-Judge bench of Hon'ble Supreme Court thereafter in a case of Subramanium Sethuraman Vrs. State of Maharashtra & Anr., (2004) 13 SCC 324 clearly held that once a plea of the accused is recorded in a summons case, it is not open to the accused person to seek a disch....
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....The judgments of this Court in Adalat Prasad [Adalat Prasad v. Rooplal Jindal, (2004) 7 SCC 338 : 2004 SCC (Cri) 1927] and Subramanium Sethuraman [Subramanium Sethuraman v. State of Maharashtra, (2004) 13 SCC 324 : 2005 SCC (Cri) 242] have interpreted the law correctly and we reiterate that there is no inherent power of trial courts to review or recall the issue of summons. This does not affect the power of the trial court under Section 322 of the Code to revisit the order of issue of process in case it is brought to the court's notice that it lacks jurisdiction to try the complaint. 24.7. Section 258 of the Code is not applicable to complaints under Section 138 of the Act and findings to the contrary in Meters & Instruments [Meters & Instruments (P) Ltd. v. Kanchan Mehta, (2018) 1 SCC 560 : (2018) 1 SCC (Civ) 405 : (2018) 1 SCC (Cri) 477] do not lay down correct law. To conclusively deal with this aspect, amendment to the Act empowering the trial courts to reconsider/recall summons in respect of complaints under Section 138 shall be considered by the Committee constituted by an order of this Court dated 10-3-2021 [Expeditious Trial of Cases Under Section 138 of NI Act....