A district court in Uttar Pradesh has rejected an application filed by the state government seeking withdrawal of criminal proceedings against the accused in the 2015 mob lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq.
Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Dwivedi of the Gautam Buddha Nagar district court on Tuesday held that the petition, filed under Section 321 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, was devoid of merit and unsupported by the evidentiary record.
The court held that the plea rested largely on alleged inconsistencies in witness statements, which did not satisfy the statutory or judicially settled thresholds for withdrawal of prosecution after the framing of charges.
Minor discrepancies concerning the number of accused identified by witnesses were neither uncommon nor determinative in criminal trials, particularly those arising out of mob violence, noted the judge, adding that the evidence placed on record failed to justify withdrawal at a post-charge stage.
The court further recorded that the statements relied upon by the state, which had been recorded under Section 161 of the CrPC during the course of investigation, had already undergone judicial scrutiny at multiple stages—first when the charge sheet was filed in December 2015 and subsequently when charges were framed in February 2021.
The material on record did not disclose any fatal contradictions, mala fides, or evidentiary infirmities that would render continuation of the trial an abuse of process. On the contrary, the record continued to disclose a prima facie case requiring adjudication through trial, it added.
Underscoring the seriousness of the offence and its broader implications for the rule of law, the court described the case as one of significant public importance and directed that the trial be conducted expeditiously.
Referring to the constitutional and statutory limitations on the executive’s power to withdraw prosecutions, as articulated by the Supreme Court in Sheo Nandan Paswan v. State of Bihar and State of Kerala v. K. Ajith, the ASJ noted that withdrawal under Section 321 CrPC must be guided by considerations of public justice and cannot be reduced to an exercise of executive discretion insulated from judicial oversight.
The counsel representing Akhlaq’s family submitted that once a completed investigation culminated in the filing of a charge sheet and the framing of charges on the basis of prima facie material, the prosecution could not be abandoned on conjectural assessments of witness credibility.
Accepting this submission, the court held that Section 321 CrPC could not be invoked as a procedural shortcut to derail a prosecution already anchored in admissible evidence.
Mohammad Akhlaq, an ironsmith from Bisara village near Dadri in Gautam Buddha Nagar district, had been lynched by a mob on the night of September 28, 2015, following allegations that his family had stored beef. His son Danish was also assaulted during the incident.
Acting on a complaint lodged by Akhlaq’s daughter, the police arrested several villagers and subsequently filed a charge sheet against 18 individuals. Proceedings continued against 16 adult accused, while the cases involving two juveniles were transferred to the Juvenile Justice Board in accordance with the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.
The Counsel representing the state government pointed out variations in the accounts of Akhlaq’s family members regarding the identity and number of assailants.
The district court, however, held that such inconsistencies were inherent in eyewitness narratives of large-scale violence and could not, by themselves, justify extinguishing criminal proceedings at a stage where evidence was yet to be tested through cross-examination and trial.
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