Legal Provisions of Section 244 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C.), India.
Evidence for prosecution:
The section suggests that the Court shall give a hearing to the prosecution regarding the nature and character of the evidence that it wants to produce in support of the prosecution case. The Magistrate is required to take all the evidence that may be produced by the prosecution, and he cannot pass an order of discharge under Section 245 (1) until all the witnesses produced by the prosecution are examined by him.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The Supreme Court in V. C. Shukla v. Delhi Administration, held that trial proceedings under Section 244, Cr. P. C. cannot be started until all the witnesses in support of prosecution are not examined and their evidence is recorded.
Difference between cases instituted on Police Report and cases instituted otherwise than Police Report
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The main difference between warrant cases instituted on police report and those instituted otherwise than on police report is that in the former the documents specified under Section 173, Cr. P. C. such as FIR, Police Report etc. are made available to the accused so that he can defend himself. It is also convenient for the Court (Magistrate) on the basis of these documents whether the accused should be discharged or he should be tried for the offence alleged to have been committed by him.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
But in case of warrant cases instituted otherwise than police report these documents are not available to the accused and the Court beforehand, there Court has to initiate a preliminary inquiry of prosecution so that when the accused is brought before the Magistrate under Section 244, Cr. P. C. the same may be heard and documents in evidence against him be made available to him.
The Court may permit examination of witness not mentioned in the list of witnesses. It is not necessary that all the witnesses named in the list should have been examined before granting such permission.
Complainant also has a right to make a request to the Court to issue summons to witnesses under this section. Thus where the complainant made repeated requests to the Court for issuing summons to witnesses, it was bounden duty of the Magistrate to secure attendance of those witnesses before dismissing the case. The complainant also has right to give a supplementary list of witnesses who were not included in the original list appended to the complaint.