A.F.R. Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:145579 Court No. - 86 Case :- CRIMINAL REVISION No. - 3324 of 2025 Revisionist :- Phool Singh Opposite Party :- State of U.P. and Another Counsel for Revisionist :- Avanish Kumar Pandey Counsel for Opposite Party :- G.A. Hon'ble Nalin Kumar Srivastava,J. 1. Heard learned counsel for the revisionist, learned A.G.A. for the State on the point of admission and perused the record. 2. This criminal revision has been preferred against the judgement and order dated 26.5.2025 passed by Additional Sessions Judge, Court No.12, Bulandshahr in Sessions Trial No. 1309 of 2020 of 2022 arising out of case crime no. 290 of 2020 under Sections 147, 148, 149, 307, 324, 504, 506 I.P.C., P.S.- Sikandrabad, District Bulandshahr whereby the application filed by the revisionist under Section 311 Cr.P.C. has been rejected. 3. It is submitted by the learned counsel for the revisionist that the accused persons have been cooperative during the proceeding of trial now the case is fixed for recording the statement under Section 313 Cr.P.C. but some relevant questions were left over to be asked from the witnesses P.W.1- Rinku, P.W.2 Gangaram, P.W.3 Dhara, P.W.4 Nepal Singh, P.W.5 Raju @ Arjun and on this ground a prayer was made to recall the aforesaid witnesses for their further cross-examination. 4. The said application after hearing was rejected by the learned trial Court and the main ground for rejection for the same was that an exhaustive cross-examination has already been 2 conducted with all the nine prosecution witnesses who were examined by the prosecution and the learned trial Court also pointed out that the application under Section 311 Cr.P.C. is a vague application as it does not contain the specific questions which are left over during cross examination and only in a cursory manner the present application has been moved. 5. There is no need to issue notice to opposite party no.2/ informant. 6. It will be apt to have a glance upon the provisions of Section 311 Cr.P.C. first. “311. Power to summon material witness, or examine person present- Any Court may, at any stage of any inquiry, trial or other proceeding under this Code, summon any person as a witness, or examine any person in attendance, though not summoned as a witness, or recall and re-examine any person already examined, and the Court shall summon and examine or recall and re-examine any such person if his evidence appears to it to be essential to the just decision of the case”. 7. The aforesaid provisions make it explicitly clear that the Court is empowered at any stage of the trial or other proceedings to recall or re-examine any person already examined if the Court considers that the evidence of that particular person appears to be essential for the just decision of the case. 8. In the instant case the prayer before the trial Court was to recall/ re-examine five witnesses already examined before it by invoking its power under Section 311 Cr.P.C. 9. The question arises whether the Court is bound to exercise its power under Section 311 Cr.P.C. simply because such an application has been moved by one of the parties. It is always to be remembered that the power under Section 311 Cr.P.C. is the 3 discretionary power of the Court and no party can claim it as of its right. It is also to be kept in mind that the Court shall use its power only when it appears to it that to recall/ re-examine such witness is essential for the just decision of the case meaning thereby and if the said witness/(s) is/are not re-examined or recall the Court may decide the case but it would not fall into the category of ‘just decision’. The phrase ‘just decision’ is very significant and reminds the basic principle of a fair trial and a proper settlement of the dispute between the parties, hence the Courts while exercising its power under Section 311 Cr.P.C. should be very cautious and alert and it should always consider as to whether such application has been moved only to fill up the lacuna by either of the parties and it is really essential to pass a justifiable order. 10. Reference may be taken of a decision of Hon’ble Apex Court passed in State of Haryana v. Ram Mehar, (2016) 8 SCC 762 wherein the Hon’ble Apex Court reiterated the principle behind the provision of Section 311 Cr.P.C. by holding that interests of victim/ the collective (represented through the prosecution) and accused must be balanced. Concept of fair trial cannot be limitlessly stretched to permit recall of witnesses endlessly on ground of magnanimity, etc. 11. In another pronouncement of Swapan Kumar Chatterjee v. CBI, (2019) 14 SCC 328 the nature and scope of power of Court has been discussed. It was also clarified by the Hon’ble Apex Court that power under Section 311 is not to be exercised if application filed is an abuse of process of law. Thus, where prosecution evidence has been closed long back and reasons for non- examination of a particular witness earlier are not satisfactorily disclosed in the application, re-summoning of such a witness at a belated stage would cause great prejudice to the other party and 4 should not be allowed. Similarly, court should not encourage filing of successive applications for recall of a witness under Section 311. 12. Now in the light of the legal principle governing the subject the application for invoking the power of the court under Section 311 Cr.P.C. moved by the accused before the trial Court only mentions that the evidence of P.W.1- Rinku, P.W.2 Gangaram, P.W.3 Dhara, P.W.4 Nepal Singh, P.W.5 Raju @ Arjun is completed but some relevant and necessary questions are left over to be asked, hence, in the interest of justice the accused persons may be permitted to cross-examine all the aforesaid five witnesses. Indubitably this is a vague application which nowhere mentions as to what significant questions are left over to be asked in the cross- examination of the aforesaid witnesses who are the witnesses of fact and what is their relevancy as well but only a cursory statement has been made in the said application without assigning any reason behind it. 13. In view of the above, if there are no substantive material and genuine reasons disclosed in the application under Section 311 Cr.P.C. invoking the power of the Court under the aforesaid provision and only to mention therein that since some very relevant questions were leftover inadvertently which are necessary to bring on record the witnesses may be recalled for cross-examination is impermissible without showing the Court that refusal to do so by the learned trial Court may result into serious prejudice to the accused. 14. The case in hand is pending at the stage of recording the statement of accused under section 313 Cr.P.C. and the evidence of the witnesses has been recorded long before. The court cannot shut its eyes to the fact that very often the purpose of such applications is to search out the material contradictions in the statement of the witnesses after a long interval and to take benefit 5 of the situation that the memory of the witnesses may fade with the passage of time. A hard fact also hammers the mind of this court that there is a strong possibility of the witnesses to be won over by the other side during a long span of time and the accused might be benefited with this. It will be apt to add that such type of vague applications on the behest of the accused are very often filed with the ulterior motive to have some contrary deposition by witnesses with their previous statements recorded before the Court. 15. The case in hand appears to be a case of the aforesaid category of malafide motive for the reason as to how an application under Section 311 Cr.P.C. can be successesfully meet before the Court to recall or re-examine a particular witness without assigning any specific or reasonable reason. Such type of applications in the firm view of this Court are illustrative of gross abuse of the process of the court. The aim of use of its discretionary power by a court must be to clear the ends of justice without causing prejudice to either of the parties. The inconvenience and hardship caused to a witness to call him again and again for evidence to the court is also an additional factor to be kept in mind by the court. 16. In view of the above, I do not think that the learned trial Court committed any legal error by rejecting the application filed by the revisionist under section 311 Cr.P.C. 17. This revision is, accordingly, dismissed at the stage of admission itself. Order Date :- 23.8.2025 Fhd Digitally signed by :- FAHAD NIYAZ High Court of Judicature at Allahabad