Petitioners/accused who are facing trial for the charges under Sections
147, 148, 302, 307 r/w 149 IPC having failed to convince the trial Court to
make a local inspection under Section 310 Cr.P.C., filed the instant Criminal
Petition to set aside the impugned order dated 16.02.2015 in Crl.M.P.No.374
of 2014 in S.C.No.64 of 2010 and direct the learned Special Sessions Judge-
cum-X Additional District and Sessions Judge, Krishna at Machilipatnam to
make a local inspection of the scene of offence in S.C.No.64 of 2010.
Section 310 Cr.P.C. deals with local inspection. It reads thus:
"310. Local Inspection. -
(1) Any Judge or Magistrate may, at any stage of any
inquiry, trial or other proceedings, after due notice to the parties, visit and
inspect any place in which an offence is alleged to have been committed, or any other
place which it is in his opinion necessary to view for the purpose of properly
appreciating the evidence given in such inquiry of trial, and shall without unnecessary delay
record a memorandum of any relevant facts observed at such inspection.
(2) Such memorandum shall form part of the record of the case and if the
prosecutor, complainant or accused or any other party to the case, so desires, a
copy of the memorandum shall be furnished to him free of cost."
A perusal of above section shows that it contains three important aspects.
(i) that it must be necessary to appreciate the evidence given;
(ii) that due notice of inspection should be given to the parties;
(iii) that a memorandum of facts observed should be recorded without
unnecessary delay.
So, predominantly the purpose for local inspection by the trial Court is to
properly appreciate the evidence given in the case. In other words, before
embarking upon the local inspection either suo motu or on the application of
the parties, the trial Court must be convinced itself that such a local
inspection of the scene of offence is necessary to appreciate the evidence
properly.
When the Court did not feel such necessity, neither the parties nor
the higher courts can either commend or command the trial Court to
invariably conduct a local inspection.
That is not the purport of Section 310
Cr.P.C.
My view is fortified from the decision rendered by Honourable High
Court of Bombay in the case of Dayanand Tukaram Raut and others
wherein it was held thus:
In my view the aforesaid provision cannot be invoked when the Court has not
felt the necessity or desirability of having such local inspection which can be
done
only for the purpose of appreciating the evidence given before the Court. There
is no
duty cast on the Court to have local inspection simply because the prosecuting
agency or one of the parties to the litigation makes an application to the Court
and,
therefore, there is no question of directing the lower Court to have local
inspection
in respect of the property which is the subject-matter of the criminal trial.
This is not
to say that the trial Court should have no local inspection as and when it is
felt
necessary or desirable by the Court itself.
So, In view of this precedential jurisprudence on the matter in issue the order
of the trial Court refusing to make a local inspection cannot be found fault
with.
Accordingly, this Criminal Petition is dismissed.-2015Telangana &A.P. msklawreports
