A court Monday pulled up a magisterial court for refusing to take cognisance of a charge sheet filed against Zee Group chairman Subhash Chandra and Zee editors Sudhir Chaudhary and Samir Ahluwalia.
Additional Sessions Judge Dharmesh Sharma said the magistrate’s court has no power to “wipe out” a police report.
“When a final police report is filed in the discretion of the investigating agencies, the court concerned shall consider the police report as per the law,” the court said.
The sessions court was hearing a plea filed by Delhi Police seeking revision of an order passed by a magistrate denying consideration of the charge sheet filed against Chandra and others in a forgery case for telecast of a show on coal blocks allocation allegedly on the basis of forged papers.
The programme hinted at Jindal Group’s alleged connection with the suspected wrongdoings in the coal blocks allocation.
“Once police report is filed, the magistrate can accept or reject it at the threshold or even after accepting it, he can discharge the accused or frame charge against him but the magistrate has no power to wipe out the report or its effect or disturb status of the accused pending investigations,” said the sessions court.
The court directed the magistrate hearing the case to modify the order to the effect that police may conduct or embark on further investigation through a officer not below the rank of assistant commissioner of police and file final police report as expeditiously as possible.
It said the opinion held by the magisterial court order that lack of evidence is a huge lacuna in the prosecution’s is absolutely fallacious and legally unfathomable.
(Source: IANS)
