DEVSING KIRTA VALVI AND OTHRSversusTHE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

2026:BHC-AUG:9814


                                                     {1}                      REVN 307 OF 2023


                            IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
                                       BENCH AT AURANGABAD

                            CRIMINAL REVISION APPLICATION NO. 307 OF 2023

                    1)    Devsing Kirta Valvi
                          Age: 34 years, Occu.: Business,
                          R/o. Gopalpur, Tal.Taloda,
                          Dist.Nandurbar.
                    2)    Rajendra @ Rajan Ratilal Padvi
                          Age: 35 years, Occu.: Agri.,
                          Occu.: Pradhan Hatti, Tal.Taloda,
                          Dist.Nandurbar.
                    3)    Mogya Krushna Bhil
                          Age: 34 years, Occu.: Service,
                          R/o. Talve, Tal.Taloda,
                          Dist.Nandurbar.
                    4)    Dayanand Mangalsing Chavan
                          Age : 41 years, Occu.: Agri.,
                          R/o. Borad, Tal.Taloda,
                          Dist.Nandurbar.
                    5)    Ratilal Supadu Valvi
                          Age: 42 years, Occu.: Business,
                          R/o. Morvad, Tal.Taloda,
                          Dist.Nandurbar.                               ....Applicant/
                                                                        Revision Petitioners
                                                            (Org. Accused Nos.9, 12 to 15)
                                      Versus

                    1)    The State of Maharashtra                      ....Respondent
                                                     …..
                    Advocate for Applicants : Mr. Suniket Anil Kulkarni
                    APP for Respondent : Mr.S.G.Sangle
                                                    …..
                                          CORAM : ABHAY S. WAGHWASE, J.

                                          RESERVED ON  : 06 MARCH, 2026
                                          PRONOUNCED ON : 09 MARCH, 2026
                                  {2}                     REVN 307 OF 2023


JUDGMENT :


1.    Revision petitioners have invoked Section 397 read with 401 of

the Code of Criminal Procedure (the Cr.P.C.) for challenging order

dated 14-07-2023 passed by learned Additional Sessions Judge,

Shahada, Dist.Nandurbar, on application Exh.51 in Sessions Case

No.66 of 2018 thereby refusing to discharge revision petitioners from

offence under Sections 307, 353, 332, 333, 143, 147, 149, 186, 109,

504 of the Indian Penal Code and under Section 37(1)(3), 135 of the

Maharashtra Police Act, registered at Taloda Police Station, District

Nandurbar.



2.    Learned counsel for the revision petitioners pointed out that,

revision petitioners are falsely implicated.    Names of none of the

petitioners are reflected in the FIR, even their roles are not distinctly

stated in the FIR. According to him, names of revision petitioners

have surfaced only after first remand of some arrested accused. That,

merely because revision petitioners were present at the scene of

occurrence    where    there    was     crowd    of   100-150     people

indiscriminately revisions petitioners are also named at subsequent

point of time as accused. According to him, in entire chargesheet,

there is no incriminating material against revision petitioners. That,
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statements of witnesses are on hearsay information. That, most of

the statements are of Police officials and Government officials. Thus,

according to him, there is no material either to frame charge or

conduct trial.   However, all such aspects are not considered and

appreciated by the learned trial Court while rejecting application

Exh.51 and so prayers are raised for allowing the revision and

discharging the revision petitioners.



3.    Learned APP strongly opposed the above on the ground that

there was assault on higher Government officials and Police officials,

who had been to the scene of occurrence where unfortunately a

student studying in Ashram school had suffered electric shock. That,

to pacify the grieving family, the said officials have rushed to the

spot, but according to him, from the FIR, it is emerging that including

present revision petitioners, several others got enraged, took law in

their hands and mounted assault on the Government officials and

Police officials, who managed to save themselves. According to him,

the mob was very violent and acts of accused therein was life

threatening to the Government officials, who were performing duties.

According to him, there are statements of several injured eye

witnesses. He pointed out that, FIR is not an encyclopedia and as
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and when names of those involved and surfaced, they were duly

named and on sufficient material against them, they are duly

chargesheeted. According to him, there are allegations of serious

offence being committed like attempt to murder. Therefore, learned

trial Court rightly rejected the application Exh.51 and he urges for

similar treatment in the revision also.



4.    After considering the above submissions, present application

seems to be an application for discharge by invoking Section 397

read with 401 of the Cr.P.C., therefore, before touching the merits, it

would be profitable to give the brief account of revisionary powers of

this Court under Section 397 of Cr.P.C. Though there are catena of

judgments, the landmark judgment of Amit Kapoor v. Ramesh

Chander and another (2012) 9 SCC 460 is relied and the relevant

observations therein are borrowed and quoted as under :



     “12. Section 397 of the Code vests the court with the
     power to call for and examine the records of an inferior
     court for the purposes of satisfying itself as to the legality
     and regularity of any proceedings or order made in a case.
     The object of this provision is to set right a patent defect
     or an error of jurisdiction or law. There has to be a well -
     founded error and it may not be appropriate for the court
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     to scrutinise the orders, which upon the face of it bears a
     token of careful consideration and appear to be in
     accordance with law. If one looks into the various
     judgments of this Court, it emerges that the revisional
     jurisdiction can be invoked where the decisions under
     challenge are grossly erroneous, there is no compliance
     with the provisions of law, the finding recorded is based on
     no evidence, material evidence is ignored or judicial
     discretion is exercised arbitrarily or perversely. These are
     not exhaustive classes, but are merely indicative. Each case
     would have to be determined on its own merits”.



5.    Here, the revision petitioners are seeking discharge under

Section 227 of Cr.P.C. Therefore, it would also be desirable to give

brief account of the judicial precedent on discharge and a few

landmark judgments which still hold the field, are as under :


      In Dilawar Balu Kurane v. State of Maharashtra , (2002) 2 SCC

135, the Hon’ble Supreme Court observed that, in exercising powers

under Section 227 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, the settled

position of law is that the Judge, while considering the question of

framing charge under the said Section, has the undoubted power to

sift and weigh the evidence for the limited purpose of finding out

whether or not a prima facie case against the accused has been made
                                  {6}                    REVN 307 OF 2023


out and whether the materials placed before the Court disclose grave

suspicion against the accused which has not been properly explained

to the Court. Only in such a case, the Court will be fully justified in

framing charge and proceed with the trial. On the other hand, if the

Judge is satisfied that the evidence produced before the Court gives

rise to some grave suspicion, then the Judge will be fully justified in

discharging the accused.



      In P. Vijayan v. State of Kerala, (2010) 2 SCC 135, the Supreme

Court has held that the Judge is not a mere post office to frame

charge, but the Judge should exercise his judicial mind and discretion

to determine whether a case for trial has been made out by

prosecution. It was further clarified that the Judge should be satisfied

that the evidence produced by the prosecution before the Court

discloses grave suspicion that the accused has committed the crime.

The Supreme Court has also laid down the following principles :


  1. If two views are possible and one of them gives rise to
      suspicion only as distinguished from grave suspicion, the
      Trial Judge would be empowered to discharge the accused.


  2. The Trial Judge is not a mere Post Office to frame the
      charge at the instance of the prosecution.
                               {7}                    REVN 307 OF 2023




3. The Judge has to merely sift the evidence in order to find
   out whether or not there is sufficient ground for
   proceeding. Evidence would consist of the statements
   recorded by the Police or the documents produced before
   the Court. It is to be noted here that the Judge has to
   merely sift the evidence on record and not go in depth of it
   in order to decide an application for discharge.


4. If the evidence, which the prosecutor proposes to adduce to
   prove the guilt of the accused, even if fully accepted before
   it is challenged in cross - examination or rebutted by the
   defence evidence, if any, 'cannot show that the accused
   committed offence, then, there will be no sufficient ground
   for proceeding with the trial.


5. It is open to the accused to explain away the materials
   giving rise to the grave suspicion.


6. The Court has to consider the broad probabilities, the total
   effort of the evidence and the documents produced before
   the Court, any basic infirmities appearing in the case and so
   on. This, however, would not entitle the Court to make a
   roving enquiry into the pros and cons.


7. At the time of framing the charges, the probative value of
   the material on record cannot be gone into, and the
   material brought on record by the prosecution, has to be
                                 {8}                    REVN 307 OF 2023


     accepted as true.


  8. There must exist some materials for entertaining the strong
     suspicion which can form the basis for drawing up a charge
     and refusing to discharge the accused.


     In Amit Kapoor (supra), in paragraphs 17 and 19, the

Hon’ble Supreme Court has observed as under :



    “Framing of a charge is an exercise of jurisdiction by the trial
    court in terms of Section 228 CrPC, unless the accused is
    discharged under Section 227 CrPC. Under both Sections 227
    and 228 CrPC, the court is required to consider the “record
    of the case” and the documents submitted therewith and,
    after hearing the parties, may either discharge the accused or
    where it appears to the court and in its opinion there is
    ground for presuming that the accused has committed an
    offence, it shall frame the charge. Once the facts and
    ingredients of the section concerned exists, then the court
    would be right in presuming that there is ground to proceed
    against the accused and frame the charge accordingly. This
    presumption is not a presumption of law as such. The
    satisfaction of the court in relation to the existence of
    constituents of an offence and the facts leading to that
    offence is a sine qua non for exercise of such jurisdiction. It
    may even be weaker than a prima facie case. (para 17)
                                   {9}                  REVN 307 OF 2023


           At the initial stage of framing of a charge, the court is
     concerned not with proof but with a strong suspicion that the
     accused has committed an offence, which, if put to trial,
     could prove him guilty. All that the court has to see is that
     the material on record and the facts would be compatible
     with the innocence of the accused or not. The final test of
     guilt is not to be applied at that stage.”


      In State of Karnataka v. M. R. Hiremath , (2019) 7 SCC 515, the

Supreme Court has observed that, at the state of considering an

application for discharge, the Court must proceed on the assumption

that the material which has been brought on record by the

prosecution should be true and the Court should evaluate the

material in order to determine whether the facts emerging from the

material, taken on its face value discloses the existence of the

ingredients necessary to constitute the offence.



      In another case of State of Tamil Nadu v. N. Suresh Rajan,

(2014) 11 SCC 709, adverting to the earlier decisions on the subject

of discharge, the Supreme Court observed that at the stage of

discharge, the probative value of the materials has to be gone into

and the Court is not expected to go deep into the matter. Whereas,

what is needed to be considered is whether there is a ground for
                                   {10}                  REVN 307 OF 2023


convicting the accused has been made out. To put it differently, if the

court thinks that the accused might have committed the offence on

the basis of the materials on record on its probative value, it can

frame the charge but for the conviction of the accused, the court

should come to the conclusion that the accused has committed the

offence. The court further observed that the law does not permit a

mini trial at the stage of discharge.



6.    Keeping in mind the above settled legal position, perused and

sifted chargesheet for limited purpose of ascertaining whether there

is sufficient material / ground for framing charge and further make

accused persons face trial. FIR dated 28-08-2018 seems to be at the

instance of Yadav Sakharam Bhadane, a Police official. Substance of

the FIR is that, a boy of tender age studying in 6th Standard in

Government Ashram School suffered electric shock at around 07.30

a.m. to 08:30 a.m. and succumbed to the same.           On receipt of

information, Police rushed to the spot at Salsadi. According to him,

when they reached there, already a mob of 100-150 had gathered

there. When attempt was made to shift the dead body for autopsy,

there was resistance by the mob. It is reported that, it was the say of

some persons that unless Project Officer arrives there, they would not
                                 {11}                    REVN 307 OF 2023


allow shifting of the dead body for autopsy.        Accordingly, such

information was passed to Tahsildar, who in-turn passed information

to Sub-Divisional Police Officer as well as Project Officer. On arrival

of said persons, it is alleged that, the mob rushed over the said

Revenue officials and Police officials and started manhandling and

thrashing to all Revenue officials and Police officials. It is emerging

from the chargesheet that, there are statements of injured. Some of

the statements are shown to be recorded while some of the Higher

Government officials were being treated in the Hospital. Thus, as

submitted by learned APP, there are statements of injured witnesses.

Learned APP also pointed out that, there is video clipping of entire

incident of which panchanama is drawn.        Therefore, taking such

material and chargesheet into account, it cannot be said that there is

no incriminating material.

      Learned APP was right in pointing out that in cases of such

nature, names of all persons, who are part of the mob, may not be

reflected in the FIR and after investigation, names have been

incorporated. Therefore, taking above discussion into account,

finding no merits, revision application deserves to be      dismissed.

Accordingly, following order is passed :
                         {12}                   REVN 307 OF 2023


                       ORDER

      Criminal Revision Application is dismissed.




                                ( ABHAY S. WAGHWASE )
                                       JUDGE

SPT