Khem Chand Sharma, J.
1. These two revision petitions under section 397 read with Section 401 Cr.P.C. arise out of the orders dated 13.3.2002 passed by the learned Additional Sessions Judge (Fast Track Court), Jhunjhunu, thereby framing charges against the petitioners for offence under Sections 120B, 147, 364 of 364/149, 302 or 302/149 and 325 or 325/149 IPC
2. To understand the controversy, it would be appropriate to have a brief resume of the facts, which are stated herebelow:
3. On 29.1,2000, complainant Sunil Kumar submitted a written report to the Superintendent of Police alleging therein that Birbal Singh was contesting panchayat election and was a candidate for Ward No. 23 of Panchayat Samiti, Jhunjhunu. His main rival was one Harphool Singh, who used to threaten to kill Birbal Singh. On 29.1.2000 at about 12.30 PM, Harphool Singh alongwith his associates came to village Bhimsar in three Jeeps and forcibly took away Birbal Singh with them in a Jeep. Some persons chased the accused. The accused persons stopped their Jeeps in Harijans Basti, outside village Bhimsar. The accused took out Birbal Singh and started severely belabouring him with fists and legs, in the presence of witnesses. Ultimately, the accused caused death of Birbal Singh. On this report, a case No. 15/2000 for offence under Sections 147, 149, 365 and 302 IPC was registered.
4. The investigating agency completed investigation and submitted a charge sheet against as many as 15 persons. On 2.7.2001, the learned trial court framed charges against 15 accused persons for offence under Section 120B, 147, 364, 364/149, 302 or 302/149 and 325 or 325/149.
5. In the course of trial against the persons charge sheeted, an application under Section 319 Cr.P.C. was moved on behalf of the prosecution with a prayer to implead 9 more persons as accused in the case. The learned trial court, after considering the material collected during investigation and produced before it and after perusal of the statements of eye witnesses, allowed the application filed on behalf of prosecution and took cognizance of the offence against the accused persons who are petitioners before this court, vide order dated 12.9.2001.
6. Feeling aggrieved by the order taking cognizance, the petitioners preferred a revision petition before this court, which was registered as SB Cr.Revision Petition No. 975/2001 and the same was dismissed by this court, thereby maintaining the order of the trial court taking cognizance.
7. The learned trial court, after considering the material available on record and hearing arguments of counsel for the parties, framed charges against the petitioners and two others, namely Harish Chandra and Sukhdeva for offence under Sections 120B, 147, 364 or 364/149, 302 or 302/149 and 325 or 325/149 IPC, vide its order dated 13.3.2002. It is against this order of framing charges, the petitioners have preferred two revisions, one by petitioners Sanjeev and Rajeev and another by petitioner Nemi Chand. Since both the revisions arise out of same orders of framing charges in a same Sessions Case, they are being disposed of by a common order.
8. The main thrust of the argument of Mr. Biri Singh, learned counsel for the petitioner is that high officials of the police department, after thorough investigation, submitted a charge sheet against number of persons. However, the Investigating Agency did not find any thing against the present petitioners so as to connect them with the commission of offence in any manner whatsoever. Learned counsel submitted with vehemence that the trial court while framing charge has to see whether or not the accused against whom charge is framed can be held guilty on the basis of the evidence available on record or that whether there was sufficient evidence on record, from which it can be inferred that the accused are guilty. In the case at hand, the learned trial court while framing charges has not applied its judicial mind for considering whether or not there is ground for presuming the commission of the offence by the accused petitioners. He argued that without considering the material on record, the trial court should not have relied upon the prosecution version. In support of his argument, learned counsel has placed reliance on the following observations of the Supreme Court in (1) Century Spinning & . and others v. State of Maharashtra (AIR 1972 SC 545):
'...The order framing charges does substantially affect the person's liberty and it is not possible to countenance the view that the Court must automatically frame the charge merely because the prosecuting authorities, by relying on the documents referred to in Section 173, consider it proper to institute the case. The responsibility of framing the charges is that of the Court and it has to judicially consider the question of doing so. Without fully adverting to the material on record it must not blindly adopt the decision of the prosecution'.
9. Learned counsel next contended that there is no iota of evidence against the accused petitioners. The Investigating Agency collected documentary evidence in the course of investigation and interrogated various officials of different departments and ultimately arrived at a conclusion that the accused petitioners were at Sriganganagar, Jaipur and Laxmangarh and were not present at the day, time and place of the incident. In these circumstances, according to the learned counsel, the orders framing charges against the petitioners without considering the documents produced on behalf of the petitioners is ex facie illegal and deserves to be quashed. Learned counsel contended that documents made available by the accused to the learned trial court should have been considered. Non-consideration thereof has caused serious prejudice to the petitioners and they are liable to be discharged. In support of his arguments, learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on a decision of the Apex Court in (2) State of Madhya Pradesh v. Mohan lal Soni (AIR 2000 SC 2583). In this case the High Court after looking to the material and documents that were made available during investigation by the accused and the directions given earlier in Criminal Revision No. 337/97 to consider the above documents, and bearing in mind the position of law concluded that charges could not have been framed against the respondent and consequently, set aside the order of the trial court and discharged the respondents. In these circumstances, their lordships of the Apex Court observed that there was no bar to consider the material on record in the case on hand, which was collected during the course of investigation and produced before the court. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition of the State and maintained the order of discharge of the accused.
10. On the other hand learned Public Prosecutor has supported the order of the trial court taking cognizance and the contended that the trial court has framed the charge against the petitioners after having prima facie satisfied on the basis of evidence and material placed on it, particularly the statements of eye witnesses. Therefore, the order impugned in these two petitions calls for no interference in revisional jurisdiction.
11. I have considered the rival submissions and have gone through the impugned order and the material placed on record.
12. What the trial court is required to do while framing charge is to consider the broad probabilities of the case, the total effect of the evidence and the documents produced before it. It is well settled that the Court framing charge is not supposed to make a roving enquiry into the pros and cons of the matter and weigh the evidence as if the trial judge was conducting trial of a case. The trial court is required to sift and weigh the evidence for a limited purposes of finding out whether or not a prima facie case against the accused has been made out.
13. In (3) Bilawar Balu Kurana v. State of Maharashtra (2002) 2 SCC 135), their Lordships while dealing with the same controversy as in the present case, propounded as below:
'..In exercising powers under Section 227 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the settled position of law is that the Judge while considering the question of framing the charges 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 out; where the materials placed before the court disclose grave suspicion against the accused which has not been properly explained the court will be fully justified in framing a charge and proceeding with the trial; by and large if two views are equally possible and the Judge is satisfied that the evidence produced before him while giving rise to some suspicion but not grave suspicion against the accused he will be fully justified to discharge the accused, and in exercising jurisdiction under Section 227 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Judge cannot act merely as a post office or a mouthpiece of the prosecution, but has to consider the broad probabilities of the case, the total effect of the evidence and the documents produced before the court but should not make a roving enquiry into the pros and cons of the matter and weigh the evidence as if he was conducting a trial'.
14. In (4) Satish Mehra v. Delhi Administration and others (1996 (9) SCC 766), their Lordships of the Supreme Court have propounded the law that what should be considered by the court is to find out whether a prima facie case against an accused is made out or not.
15. Recently, the Apex Court in (5) Smt. Om Wati and Anr. v. State, through Delhi Administration and Ors. (2001 Cr.L.J. 1723 = 2001(2) Crimes 59), observed that 'it is axiomatic that the standard of proof normally adhered to at the final stage is not to be applied at the stage where the scope of consideration is where there is sufficient ground for proceeding'. Their Lordships while allowing the Appeal, setting aside the order of the High Court discharging the accused further observed as under:
'We would again remind the High Courts of their statutory obligation to not to interfere at the initial stage of framing the charges merely on hypothesis, imagination and far fetched reasons which in law amount to interdicting the trial against the accused persons. Unscrupulous litigations should be discouraged from protracting the trial and preventing cultimation of criminal cases by having resort to uncalled for and unjustified litigation under the cloak of technicalities of law'.
16. In the case at hand, from a perusal of the order of the trial court it appears that the trial court on the basis of the statements of 6 witnesses and other documentary evidence collected during investigation and produced before it arrived at a conclusion that the accused petitioners appear to be connected with the commission of offence. The plea of alibi raised on behalf of the petitioners at the strength of report of the Investigating Officer that the petitioners were present at Ganganagar, Laxmangarh and Jaipur at the time of incident, could not have been considered at the stage of framing charge, inasmuch as, burden to prove the plea of alibi heavily lies on the accused and that can be done only in the course of trial of the case by leading evidence both oral as well as documentary. In my considered view there is no ground to interfere with the well reasoned order of the trial court and it is not safe at this stage to deprive the prosecution in proving its case on the basis of the evidence, oral as well as documentary allegedly disclosing commission of offence. Therefore, it must be held that if the trial court was satisfied that a prima facie case was made out for proceeding further then a charge has to be framed, it must also be held that even if two views are equally possible from the evidence and material collected during course of investigation, the view favouring the prosecution must be taken if the evidence so collected gives rise to grave suspicion. I am fortified in my view by the observations of the Apex Court in Dilawar Balu Kurane's case (supra), which have already been referred to in the earlier part of this order.
17. In the case in hand, the learned trial court having prima facie satisfied on the basis of evidence available on record, found the involvement of the petitioners in the commission of offence.
18. That apart, the revisional powers under Section 397 Cr.P.C. cannot be exercised in a routine and causa) manner. It may be exercised sparingly so as to avoid needless multiplicity of proceedings, unnecessary delay in trial and protraction of proceedings. Such powers could be exercised only when it is shown that there is a legal bar against the continuance of criminal proceedings or the framing of charge or the facts as stated in the first information report even if they are taken at the face value and accepted in their entirety do not constitute the offence for which the accused has been charged. It cannot also be lost sight that this court had earlier dismissed the revision petition filed by the petitioners challenging the order taking cognizance of the offence against the petitioner.
For the reasons aforesaid, these revision petitions being devoid of merit, stand dismissed at the admission stage.