- In the case of Laxman Rao vs. Court of Third Additional Sessions Judge, Guna and anr. the Hon’ble Madhya Pradesh HC has held that an inquiry is not an absolute necessity before prosecuting a witness under section 195 CrPC and the applicant does not have a right of hearing prior to the inquiry.
- In the instant case, the applicant was a seizure witness for the prosecution in a robbery case of the amount of Rs. 20 lakh. While he was being examined in the trial Court, he changed his stance multiple times and thereby tried to deliberately weaken the prosecution case by saying things like he forgot about the incident and goofing up the name of the area from which the money was recovered.
- While pronouncing the judgement, the trial Court also observed that the applicant has deliberately tried to weaken the prosecution case and therefore directed a complaint to be filed under section 340 CrPC for his prosecution under section 195 IPC. An objection was raised by the applicant that since no preliminary inquiry was conducted under 340 CrPC, thus the complaint was not maintainable and liable to be set aside. But the Court rejected this application.
- Aggrieved, the applicant filed an appeal which was also rejected by the Additional Sessions Judge, Guna. It was after this rejection, that the applicant moved the HC.
- On the question of whether a preliminary enquiry is mandatory for the persecution of the witnesses under 340 CrPC, the Court relied upon the judgement of the Hon’ble Apex Court in the case of Pritish vs State of Maharashtra (2002)SCC where the Apex Court has held that the object of 340 CrPC is to form an opinion by the Court that an inquiry is to be made by the Court into an offence which appears to have been committed, if it is in the interests of justice. It is in order to form such an opinion that the preliminary inquiry is necessary. The holding of such preliminary inquiry is not mandatory and can be done away with if the Court thinks fit.
- It was also held by the Apex Court in the aforementioned case the preliminary inquiry mentioned in 340 CrPC is not to find if a particular person is guilty or not, but the purpose is to decide whether the same is necessary to decipher whether the offence has been committed or not. It was in this light that the HC held that when a magistrate is of a prima facie opinion that it is in the interest of justice to proceed against a witness for giving false evidence, holding of a preliminary inquiry is not mandatory.
- The HC also observed that the applicant was a member of Gram Raksha Samiti and that he had a statutory duty to discharge. He deliberately changed his version of events multiple times to defeat the ends of justice by intentionally weakening the prosecution case.
- Thus, the HC held that the trial Court had not made any mistake in rejecting the application filed under section 340 CrPC. Thus, the revision application was dismissed.
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