Legal Provisions of Section 239 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C.), India.
When accused shall be discharged:
The section requires that the Magistrate before discharging the accused under this section must record his reasons for holding the charge against the accused to be groundless so that the higher Court will have no difficulty in assessing the correctness of the decision of the Magistrate when the case comes before it in revision.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The High Courts of Rajasthan and Punjab and Himachal Pradesh have expressed a view that the accused in a warrant case is entitled to place on record certain documents in his support for being considered before framing of charges against him.
The Court further held that the prosecutor can be called upon to admit or deny the genuineness of each such document included in the list. It was also observed that similar right also vests in the prosecution.
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After considering the entire material on record referred to in this section, the Magistrate may discharge the accused if the charges are considered to be groundless by him.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The Supreme Court in Century Spinning & Mfg. Co. v. State of Maharashtra has observed that the present section should be read along with Section 240 (2) and if the Magistrate has grounds for presuming that the accused has committed no offence and the charges alleged against him are groundless, he should be discharged forthwith. The word ‘charge’ used in Section 239 in fact means allegation or accusation. An order of discharge based on error of record is liable to be quashed.
Where the accused had moved an application for discharge under Section 239, CrPC, the leader of the Opposition in Kerala Legislative Assembly, a stranger to the case, applied to the Magistrate’s Court that the accused be not discharged.
The High Court of Kerala rejected the application filed by the leader of the Opposition Party holding that Sections 238 and 239 are complete Code in the matter of discharge or framing of charges in a warrant case instituted on a police report, and a stranger (third party) cannot be allowed to intervene in the proceedings.
The Supreme Court in P.N. Mukerje v. State held that when an order of discharge is made by a Magistrate in exercise of the powers under this section, the discharge is not in respect of all the offences which the facts mentioned in the police report would make out.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The discharge has reference to only such offences mentioned in the charge-sheet, which are triable as warrant cases instituted on a police report, and therefore, does not in any way affect the charges of offences triable as summons case under Chapter XX of the Code.
Therefore, a Magistrate, after passing an order of discharge under this section in respect of a charge for an offence triable as a warrant case can still proceed to try the accused for other offences disclosed by the police report.
In Murarilal Gupta v. Republic of India, a company had issued advertisement inviting application for employment in Gulf country. In response, several candidates had applied and deposited money. But none of them was given employment nor money deposited by them was returned.
Accused, the Managing Director was key person for this fraud. The materials prima facie had established link between accused and activities alleged by prosecution had raised strong suspicion of his evolvement in the alleged cheating and criminal conspiracy. Therefore, the rejection of his application for discharge was held to be proper.
With reference to Section 232, Cr. P.C., the High Court of Jharkhand held that refusal to discharge the accused without assigning reasons would not be proper. The trial is required to assign reasons for refusing to discharge the accused person.
An order of discharge passed under this section does not amount to an acquittal because no trial commences at this stage. So also, an order of discharge under this section does not amount to an order of dismissal of case within the meaning of Section 203 of the Code.