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HC dismisses plea of MLA Bains in rape case
Bains had approached high court on July 12 seeking quashing of the July 6 order of a Ludhiana court in which registration of FIR against him was ordered on the complaint of a woman
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday dismissed a plea from Punjab MLA and Lok Insaaf Party (LIP) chief Simarjit Singh Bains, booked for allegedly raping a woman.
Bains had approached high court on July 12 seeking quashing of the July 6 order of a Ludhiana court in which registration of FIR against him was ordered on the complaint of a woman. Bains had pleaded that the trial court passed the order without proper application of mind and contrary to settled tenets of criminal jurisprudence.
Dismissing his plea, the high court bench of justice Manjari Nehru Kaul said it did not find any infirmity in the order of trial court. “The mere registration of an FIR cannot be construed as an act, which might prejudice the petitioner (Bains) in any manner. The court is only required to examine the existence of a cognisable offence and direct registration of the FIR in case the necessary ingredients with respect to the cognizable offences are made out,” the bench observed.
The FIR was registered on the allegations of a 45-year-old woman in Ludhiana. The woman had initially lodged a complaint against Bains eight months ago. The woman alleged that she had come into contact with the MLA in a property dispute case but she was trapped. The case was finally registered at the Division 6 police station on July 12 on court’s order.
The high court said that trial court neither acted without jurisdiction nor can its decision be termed as an abuse of the process of law. “..the power under Section 156(3) CrPC is a statutory power conferred upon the magistrate giving rise to a statutory remedy in favour of a person aggrieved. It would rather be an act of abdication of his powers by a magistrate in case he does not take an appropriate decision and fails to exercise his jurisdiction in the event of an aggrieved person approaching him,” the court recorded.
The bench also said that the allegations by the complainant woman cannot be disbelieved outrightly at this juncture and and the investigating agency cannot be stalled/stopped from conducting investigation into the allegations which prima facie reflect commission of a cognizable offence.
“A perusal of the allegations ... sufficiently persuades this court that the ACJM, Ludhiana, had enough material before it to order registration of an FIR,” the bench said adding that a magistrate certainly had the jurisdiction to act under 156 (3) CrPC and the pendency of a petition before high court on same controversy will not take away that jurisdiction vested in him. At the time of trial court order a plea seeking registration of FIR was pending in HC also.
To the argument raised by Bains that magistrate ought not to have expressed his opinion on the allegations leveled in the complaint, the court said that though it was not necessary for the trial court, to record reasons in “extenso” but the order revealed that the judicial officer had recorded only enough reasons to show that there was application of mind. “Hence, the above argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner is somewhat misplaced as there is no prohibition on recording reasons by a magistrate,” the court said.
SAD demands Bains’ arrest
Ludhiana: Following the high court order, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) demanded immediate arrest Bains. Terming the HC verdict as the victory of human rights, SAD leader Harish Rai Dhandha said police officials tried to save Bains.
Senior SAD leader and former minister Maheshinder Singh Grewal said: “While the state machinery was denying justice a victim, it was the court of law that came to her rescue.”
