MUMBAI: A special CBI court in Mumbai has dismissed a criminal revision petition filed by fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi and another accused, holding that a magistrate’s decision to take cognisance and issue process (summon him to face trial) in a CBI cheating and conspiracy case did not suffer from any illegality, impropriety or non-application of mind, even though the order was passed on the same day the charge sheet was filed.
The revision was rejected after the prosecution contended that the challenge itself was a tactical attempt to “delay and derail” Choksi’s ongoing deportation proceedings in Belgium—a submission the court recorded while declining to interfere at the threshold stage of the criminal prosecution. Choksi, a prime accused in the alleged ₹13,500-crore Punjab National Bank fraud case, was arrested in Belgium last April following an extradition request by Indian probe agencies.
The order, passed by Special Judge Dr J P Darekar, upheld the order of the additional chief judicial magistrate, Esplanade Court, Mumbai, by which cognisance had been taken and process issued against the accused on the basis of a police report.
Rejecting the argument that the magistrate’s order was mechanical merely because it was passed on the same day as the filing of the chargesheet, the court held that the law does not mandate a detailed or elaborate order at the stage of issuing process when cognisance is taken of a police report.
“As per the settled legal principle,” the court observed, “the learned magistrate is not required to read the entire charge sheet in depth. In the present case, the learned magistrate has formed a prima facie opinion.”
The revision applicants had argued that the magistrate’s order violated the requirement of judicial application of mind, contending that no specific role had been attributed to them and that the order was passed “in lightning speed” without reasons. They relied on a long line of Supreme Court and high court decisions to argue that issuance of process without recording reasons vitiates the proceedings.
The court, however, distinguished the authorities relied on by the accused, observing that several of those rulings arose in materially different situations, including private complaints or cases where cognisance had been taken without the benefit of a police investigation. In contrast, the court noted, the present proceedings stemmed from a chargesheet filed after investigation, placing the magistrate’s order on a materially different footing.
Citing Supreme Court decisions, the court held that it would be “far-fetched to fault the order… on the ground that it does not adduce detailed reasons for taking cognisance or that it does not indicate an application of mind” where the magistrate had “perused the police report and supporting material”.
The prosecution, represented by the CBI, opposed the revision by submitting that there were “specific roles attributed to each accused in the charge sheet” and that applicant No 2, Chokshi, was attempting to stall criminal proceedings in India while extradition and deportation proceedings were underway abroad.
The court recorded this submission, noting that the CBI had argued that the revision was “an attempt to delay and derail ongoing deportation proceedings initiated against Choksi at Belgium” before proceeding to examine the legality of the magistrate’s order on its own merits.
After analysing the impugned order, the court concluded that it could not be characterised as cryptic or mechanical. “In a nutshell,” the judge held, “the order under challenge is not mechanical, cryptic or without application of mind or without perusing the material on record.”