It is evident from the above that this Court was considering the rare and exceptional cases where the High Court may consider unimpeachable evidence while exercising jurisdiction for quashing under Section 482 of the Code. In the present case, however, the question involved is not about the exercise of jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code where along with the petition the accused may file unimpeachable evidence of sterling quality and on that basis seek quashing, but is about the right claimed by the accused to produce material at the stage of framing of charge. Reliance has also been placed on decision in the case of P.S.Rajya v. State of Bihar [(1996) 9 SCC 1] where this court rejected the contention urged on behalf of the State that the points on which the accused was seeking quashing of criminal proceedings could be established by giving evidence at appropriate time and no case had been made out for quashing the charge itself. The charge was quashed by this Court. In this case too only on peculiar facts of the case, this Court came to the conclusion that the criminal proceedings initiated against the appellant-accused could not be pursued. Those peculiar facts have been noticed in paragraphs 14, 17, 18 and 19 of the decision. The contention of the accused based on those peculiar facts has been noticed in para 15 and that of respondent that the CBI was entitled to proceed on the basis of the material available and the mere allegations made by the accused cannot take the place of proof and that had to be gone into and established in the final hearing, has been noticed in para 16. After noticing those contentions and the decision in the case of State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal [1992 (Suppl.1) 335] laying down the guidelines relating to the exercise of extraordinary power under Article 226 or the inherent power under Section 482 of the Code for quashing an FIR or a complaint, this Court, on the peculiar facts, came to the conclusion that the case of the appellant could be brought under more than one head given in Bhajan Lal’s case (supra) without any difficulty so as to quash the proceedings. In this background, observations were made in para 23 on which reliance has been placed on behalf of the accused whereby rejecting the contention of the State as noticed in para 16, the Court came to the conclusion that the criminal proceedings deserve to be quashed. In this case too the question was not about the right of the accused to file material at the stage of framing charge but was about quashing of proceedings in exercise of power under Section 482 of the Code. The decision in the case of State of Madhya Pradesh v. MohanLal Soni [(2000) 6 SCC 338] sought to be relied upon on behalf of the accused is also of no assistance because in that case an earlier order of the High Court wherein trial court was directed to take into consideration the documents made available by the accused during investigation while framing charge had attained finality since that order was not challenged and in that view this Court came to the conclusion that the trial court was bound and governed by the said direction of the High Court which had not been followed. As a result of aforesaid discussion, in our view, clearly the law is that at the time of framing charge or taking cognizance the accused has no right to produce any material. Satish Mehra’s case holding that the trial court has powers to consider even materials which accused may produce at the stage of Section 227 of the Code has not been correctly decided. On behalf of the accused a contention about production of documents relying upon Section 91 of the Code has also been made. Section 91 of the Code reads as under: “Summons to produce document or other thing.(1) Whenever any Court or any officer in charge of a police station considers that the production of any document or other thing is necessary or desirable for the purposes of any investigation, inquiry, trial or other proceeding under this Code by or before such Court or officer, such Court may issue a summons, or such officer a written order, to the person in whose possession or power such document or thing is believed to be, requiring him to attend and produce it, or to produce it, at the time and place stated in the summons or order.
