Muhammad Mukaram
Early Times Report
Jammu, July 19 (JNF): High court judge Tashi Rabstan has called for the latest status report from judicial magistrate Ist Class (munsiff), Thanamandi, Rajouri, for booking two women in the same offence twice.
The court directive came in a petition filed by Zahida Parveen and Kulsoom Begum, alleging that the judicial magistrate had charged them twice for the same offence under section 323 of RPC and discharged under section 325 of RPC.
Justice Rabstan said, "It is contended by the petitioners' counsel that section 323 of RPC has been mentioned twice in the May 24, 2016 impugned order as well as in the chargesheet. To ascertain the factual position, it would be appropriate to direct the judicial magistrate to file the latest status report in this regard by or before the next date of hearing."
The court also directed the registry to forward a copy of this order to the judicial magistrate forthwith. The counsel for the petitioners submitted that the duo were victims of a brutal attack by the accused and in this connection, police, after conclusion of investigation, had filed a challan under sections 325, 447, 323, 147 and 148 of RPC against the accused.
The challan was presented in the court of judicial magistrate Ist Class, Thanamandi, on May 17, 2016. On May 24, 2016, he framed charges under sections 323, 447, 323, 147 and 148 of RPC and thus discharged the accused under section 325 of RPC. Not only this, the order where section 325 was omitted and section 323 was repeated, in all the chargesheet forms of the accused, the same offences were repeated. So much so that on the very first date of trial, the accused were permanently exempted from this serious case, thus prejudicing the entire case of the complainants, the counsel alleged.
After hearing the submissions advanced by the counsel and viewing the case seriously, the court called for the latest report from the concerned court and directed that the case to be listed on August 4, 2016. |
