The Allahabad High Court has issued a direction to trial courts across the state of Uttar Pradesh that the framing of charges in criminal cases should not be deferred merely because an accused person has filed a revision petition or an appeal against an order rejecting his application for discharge. The High Court bench, presided over by Justice Chawan Prakash, emphasized that trial courts have a statutory duty to frame charges once a plea seeking discharge has been rejected, unless a superior court has expressly stayed that order of rejection. In its order, the High Court expressed alarm at a recurring trend in which trial courts adjourn the framing of charges or indefinitely defer the final hearing of cases on the ground that a criminal revision or a writ petition is pending before the High Court, even though no stay has been granted on the order rejecting the discharge plea. The court observed that merely filing a criminal revision or a criminal appeal against an order does not, in itself, amount to a stay of the proceedings of the trial court. The bench underscored the settled principle of law that the mere filing of an appeal, revision petition, or writ petition does not automatically stay a trial court’s proceedings. Unless the order rejecting the discharge application is challenged and stayed by a higher court, the trial courts—whether Sessions Courts or Magistrate Courts—are statutorily bound to frame charges against the accused under Sections 228 and 240 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The High Court’s order arose in a case where a revision petition was filed by one Avanish Chandra Srivastava, a retired government employee, challenging an order of the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Kaushambi, who had rejected his application for discharge in a criminal case involving significant offences under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including sections pertaining to criminal breach of trust by a public servant, cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy. The First Information Report in that case was lodged in the year 2004, and it alleged that upon his transfer, Srivastava failed to hand over charge and relevant rural development documents to the officer who succeeded him, and further, that he had prepared receipt and bill vouchers using forged signatures. Srivastava, through his counsel, Senior Advocate V.P. Srivastava, contended in his revision petition that the allegations were baseless and without merit. It was argued on his behalf that during the course of the investigation, the missing files and documents were eventually recovered from the almirah of a co-accused, thereby suggesting that the materials implicating him were not grounded in the facts of the investigation.
Further, Srivastava’s counsel placed significant reliance on a disciplinary inquiry report that was filed nearly seventeen years after the charge sheet had been filed in the criminal proceedings. In this disciplinary inquiry, Srivastava was exonerated, and his counsel contended that since the departmental proceedings had found him innocent, the criminal prosecution against him should not be permitted to continue. It was urged that the trial court had erred in rejecting the discharge application. However, the Allahabad High Court rejected the contentions raised by the revisionist. The single judge clarified that, at the stage of deciding a discharge application, the Magistrate is required to consider only the police report and the documents sent with it under Section 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The court noted that documents or materials relied upon by the defence, including exculpatory material such as disciplinary inquiry reports, cannot be taken into consideration while passing an order on a discharge application. The bench underscored that the decision on a discharge application is confined to the record forwarded by the investigating agency and that the scope of inquiry at that stage is limited.
Further observations of the High Court made it clear that, at the stage of framing charges, it is not obligatory for the presiding judge to engage in detailed analysis or to balance the evidence in a manner that determines whether the facts, if proved, would be incompatible with the innocence of the accused. The High Court stressed that the test for framing charges is confined to whether there is a strong suspicion that an offence has been committed and whether there are grounds to proceed with the trial. In this particular case, the court held that the disciplinary inquiry report, which was generated long after the filing of the charge sheet, could not be considered at this preliminary stage. The decision reiterated that the focus at the stage of framing charges is not to evaluate all materials for their ultimate merit, but merely to ascertain whether there is a prima facie case that warrants the framing of charges and the continuation of the criminal trial.
Referring specifically to the statutory provisions under Sections 228 and 240 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the High Court observed that if a Sessions Court or a Magistrate does not find any grounds to discharge the accused, the court is statutorily bound to frame charges against the accused. In the case in question, despite the Chief Judicial Magistrate’s rejection of the discharge application on February 7th, 2024, no charges had been framed against the accused to date. The High Court noted with concern that it has encountered numerous criminal revision petitions in which trial courts, after dismissing the application filed by the accused seeking discharge, fix the case for the framing of charges only after a considerable lapse of time, often after about one month. In some other cases, the trial courts were not framing charges at all on the pretext that criminal revisions filed against the orders rejecting the discharge applications were pending before the High Court.
After examining the materials and the law, the High Court dismissed the revision petition filed by Srivastava on the ground that a prima facie case was made out against him based on the charge sheet and the materials before the trial court. The High Court also directed the Registrar (Compliance) to circulate the judgment among all district courts in the state for guidance and implementation. The court instructed the District Judges to ensure that all judicial officers in their respective courts are made aware of the principle that, unless the order rejecting a discharge application is challenged and stayed by the High Court, the trial courts are under a statutory duty to frame charges against the accused. The High Court further clarified that the mere filing of an appeal, a revision petition, or a writ petition does not constitute a valid or justifiable ground to stay the proceedings of a case in the trial court.
In issuing this directive, the High Court sought to curb the practice of undue delays in the criminal trial process and emphasized the statutory obligations imposed on trial courts once a discharge application is rejected. The court’s directive aims to ensure that criminal trials proceed in a timely and orderly manner without being stalled on procedural technicalities, particularly where no stay has been granted by a higher court on the trial court’s order rejecting the discharge application. By circulating the judgment to all district courts, the High Court intends to reinforce adherence to the established principles governing the framing of charges and to mitigate the trend of deferring crucial trial stages solely on account of the pendency of higher court proceedings that have not been stayed.
This decision underscores the High Court’s commitment to upholding procedural mandates and preventing trial delays that could undermine the administration of justice. It clarifies the limited scope of inquiry at the discharge and charge framing stages and reaffirms that a strong suspicion of involvement in an offence is sufficient to warrant framing charges, even if the accused has raised exculpatory contentions or relied on materials such as disciplinary inquiry reports that are outside the scope of materials considered at that stage. The High Court’s observations and directions are intended to guide trial courts in fulfilling their statutory duties under the Criminal Procedure Code and to prevent unwarranted deferment of trial proceedings absent an explicit stay of the order rejecting a discharge application. The case titled Avanish Chandra Srivastava vs. State of U.P. and Another, cited as 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 42, thus serves as a significant judicial pronouncement on the procedural obligations of trial courts in framing charges following the rejection of discharge applications, and on the limits of procedural postponements in the absence of a stay order from a superior court.
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