Courts take cognizance of the offence, not of the offenders: Madras Excessive Court docket

Courts take cognizance of the offence, not of the offenders. Subsequently, it isn’t mandatory for a courtroom to afford a chance of listening to earlier than issuing summons to an accused named in a supplementary chargesheet if cognizance had already been taken on the time of submitting of foremost chargesheet by the investigating company, the Madras Excessive Court docket has held.

A Division Bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and Mohamed Shaffiq dominated so whereas dismissing a legal revision case filed by businessman Rahul Surana. He had filed the revision towards his inclusion because the forty second accused by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in a cash laundering case registered on the idea of a ₹1,301 crore financial institution mortgage misappropriation case booked by the CBI.

The judges agreed with ED Particular Public Prosecutor N. Ramesh that taking cognizance of the identical offense on a number of events would render the judicial course of redundant and lead to delay in justice supply course of. As soon as cognizance of an offense had been taken by a courtroom, any additional supplementary prosecution grievance have to be thought of to be flowing from the primary grievance, they mentioned.

Authoring the decision, Justice Subramaniam mentioned, cognizance basically implies that the decide involved ought to have utilized his/her judicial thoughts and be glad prima facie that the allegations within the grievance, if proved, would represent an offence. Within the current case, cognizance was taken in 2022 when the primary chargesheet was filed and therefore taking cognizance afresh in 2024 doesn’t come up, he added.

When it was delivered to the discover of the Division Bench that the trial courtroom had particularly talked about in 2024 that it was taking cognizance of the grievance towards the revision petitioner, the judges mentioned, such a written commentary by the trial courtroom, in its docket order, may solely be thought of as an error that may very well be ignored and needn’t be given a lot credence.

“This can’t be construed as a fabric or substantive error. It’s a mere curable error of expression. This curable error can neither go to the extent of vitiating the whole proceedings nor can it lead to miscarriage of justice… Therefore, the language of the impugned (beneath problem) order doesn’t present any irregularity and so the objection raised by the petitioner at this stage can’t be entertained.” the Bench wrote.

It additionally said that the trial courtroom couldn’t be anticipated to jot down prolonged orders earlier than issuing summons to the accused after the submitting of each different supplementary chargesheet and that it was enough to cross a quick order. “When the intent of the order is issuance of course of primarily based on the grievance, there doesn’t come up a necessity for an elaborate or reasoned order,” the judges mentioned.