Apex Court Refuses To Interfere With Interim Relief Granted By High Court To Babulal Marandi's Secretary In Rape Case

The Supreme Court, today, refused to interfere with the ad-interim order passed by the Jharkhand High Court directing not to frame of charges in an alleged rape case against Sunil Kumar Tiwari, Secretary of BJP leader Babulal Marandi.

The State of Jharkhand, by way of present special leave petitions, assailed the interim protection granted by the High Court.

The Bench of Justice Bela M Trivedi and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma ordered, "The impugned orders being interim in nature, we are not inclined to interfere with the same. However, considering the controversy involved, the High Court is requested to hear and decide the writ petition...as expeditiously as possible, preferably within one month from the date of this order...Dismissed."

Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan appeared on behalf of the Petitioner-State.

The Court remarked that this is an ad-interim order, and let the High Court pass a final order. Counsel for the State submitted that it is a case involving an offence of rape and under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 ('SC/ST Act'). "The Court cannot pass an order like that when a State Investigation Agency is investigating the matter", he said.

He referred to the case diary and read, "There are 316 Audio Clips in the Audio File and there are 124 Image Files, and analysis thereof are ongoing during the course of investigation and the same would be recorded in the Case diary in subsequent dates. From the perusal of the conversation between the accused and victim in the Snapshot, it is apparent that there used to be multiple and long conversation between the accused and the victim. From the perusal of the kind of conversation, the allegations levelled against the accused stands proved."

The Prosecution had alleged that Tiwari had threatened the victim to withdraw a case arising out of offences under Sections 376(1), 354(A), 354(D), 504, 506, 509 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Sections 3(2)(V)(VA) SC/ST Act.

Tiwari then filed a writ petition before the High Court seeking to quash the aforesaid criminal proceedings. The High Court, by way of the impugned interim order, had directed that no charges be framed against Tiwari.

The State in its petition said, "The aforesaid reasons are ex- facie untenable, bad in law and the interim order of no charges to be framed in the impugned order is unwarranted and the Hon'ble High Court has, by the impugned order, interfered with the due process of law and stayed further proceeding before the Trial Court in favour of the Respondent who is charged with having committed the serious offences of rape and threatening a minor victim belonging to the marginalized section of the society."

The Plea also stated, "The Ld. Court of AJC-II Cum Special Act SC/ST Act Ranchi was pleased to take cognizance of the offences as alleged vide order dated 05.07.2022. The victim had recorded her statement u / s 164 Cr.P.C. as well thereby implicating the Respondent in the heinous offence of rape and molestation as well as Criminal Intimidation. Trial of the aforesaid case is pending adjudication. The process of law ought to have been permitted to continue and the materials collected during the investigation can be tested during the course of the trial and the Hon'ble High Court erred in interfering with the process of law by staying framing of charges against the respondent resulting in miscarriage of justice."

Sankaranarayan also referred to landmark judgments of the Court in Neeharika Infrastructure (P) Ltd. v. State of Maharashtra (2021) and Ramgopal & Anr. vs The State of Madhya Pradesh (2012). It further said that the High Court, by means of the Cryptic Interim order stayed the framing of charges against the Respondent without assigning any adequate reasons or consideration of relevant factors for the stay of Trial.

"While passing the order the Hon'ble High Court has indicated that the Court in Writ Jurisdiction must satisfy itself that no innocent person may be prosecuted in a criminal case which is erroneous because pursuant to the Investigations the Respondent has been found to have committed the offences...Minor victim has herself appeared and recorded her statement under Section 164 Cr.P.C. which prima facie gives substance to the allegation against the Respondent No. 1. Therefore, the Hon'ble High Court erred in passing the impugned interim order of stay as the process of justice ought to be taken to its logical conclusion and the respondent must prove his innocence after a full dress trial rather than in a summary manner under Writ Jurisdiction of the High Court", the State contended.

Accordingly, the Court dismissed the petitions.

Cause Title: The State Of Jharkhand And Anr. v. Sunil Tiwari @ Sunil Kumar Tiwari (SLP(Crl) No. 12213/2024 & SLP(Crl) No. 12181/2024)