Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:67538 Court No. - 80 Case :- CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 10142 of 2024 Appellant :- Gendan Lal Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others Counsel for Appellant :- Vinay Kumar Tripathi Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.,Jay Singh Yadav Hon'ble Nalin Kumar Srivastava,J. 1. The present criminal appeal under Section 14-A(1) Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (in short 'the SC/ST Act') has been filed by the appellant - Gendan Lal with the prayer to quash the impugned order dated 10.5.2024 passed by the Special Judge (SC/ST Act), Bareilly in Criminal Case No. 268 of 2024, under Section 156(3) CrPC, P.S. Baheri, District Bareilly. 2. Heard learned counsel for the appellant, learned counsel for the opposite party nos.2 and 3 as well as the learned AGA for State and perused the material available on record. 3. It is submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that the appellant has moved an application under Section 156(3) CrPC against opposite party nos. 2 and 3 which was rejected by the Court concerned though a cognizance offence was made out. It is also submitted by the learned counsel for the appellant that the Magistrate/ Court was bound to pass an order for registration of the FIR and its investigation by the police on the application under section 156(3) CrPC as a cognizable offence of serious nature requiring investigation is made out on the basis of averments made in the said application. The Court concerned has passed the impugned order without applying judicial mind, which is illegal. 4. On the other hand, learned AGA and learned counsel for the opposite party nos. 2 and 3 opposed the prayer and submitted that in the application under Section 156(3) CrPC moved by the appellant the Court concerned found no substance and has rightly rejected the same. The court concerned has not committed any error while passing the impugned order and it has recorded pure finding of fact. The impugned order does not suffer from any illegality or infirmity warranting interference of this Court. 5. I have considered the submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through entire the record. 6. While dealing with an application under Section 156(3) CrPC the Magistrate is required to apply its mind to find out whether the first information report sought to be lodged by the applicant had any substance or not. If the allegations made in the application under Section 156(3) CrPC prima-facie appear to be without any substance, then in such situation the Magistrate can refuse to direct registration of the FIR and its investigation by the police and in such a case he is fully competent to reject the application. Even in the cases where prima facie cognizable offence is disclosed from the averments made in the application under Section 156 (3) CrPC according to facts and nature of the offences alleged to have been committed, the Magistrate can decline to direct investigation and in such cases the application under section 156(3) CrPC can be treated as complaint. 7. In the case in hand from a perusal of the entire application under Section 156(3) CrPC it reveals that no time and place of the occurrence has been mentioned. The trial court has laid emphasis upon the said omission and that was the main reason to reject the said application. In my view also if the applicant / appellant fails to disclose time and place of the occurrence, the application under Section 156(3) CrPC was bound to be rejected. Though the said application has been supported with an affidavit of the appellant / applicant but in the affidavit itself nothing has been averred in respect of the time and place of the occurrence. 8. In Syed Ibrahim vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, JT 2006 (6) SC 597 it has been expressly held that it would not be proper to accept the prosecution case when the place of occurrence itself has not been established. Also in Asraf Biswas vs. The State of West Bengal, 2016 SCC OnLine Cal. 4342 it was found from the evidence on record that the place of occurrence was not proved beyond all reasonable doubts. The Calcutta High Court held that “Once it is held that the place of occurrence has not been established beyond all reasonable doubts, then the other circumstances are hardly sufficient to establish the guilt of the accused”. 9. From the above, it is clear that if the place and time of occurrence has not been established, the prosecution case is not liable to be accepted. In the present case, the appellant has not mentioned the time and place of occurrence in the entire affidavit. Hence, in my view, there is no infirmity or illegality in the impugned order. The appeal being devoid of merits is liable to be dismissed and the same is accordingly dismissed. Order Date :- 30.4.2025 safi Digitally signed by :- MAHBOOB SAFI High Court of Judicature at Allahabad