What court see at framing of charge?

 The law on the subject was reiterated by Supreme Court in Dipakbhai Jagdishchandra Patel vs. State of Gujarat and Ors. reported as 2019 SCC OnLine SC 588, where it was held as under:

“23. At the stage of framing the charge in accordance with the principles which have been laid down by this Court, what the Court is expected to do is, it does not act as a mere post office. The Court must indeed sift the material before it. The material to be sifted would be the material which is produced and relied upon by the prosecution. The sifting is not to be meticulous in the sense that the Court dons the mantle of the Trial Judge hearing arguments after the entire evidence has been adduced after a full-fledged trial and the question is not whether the prosecution has made out the case for the conviction of the accused. All that is required is, the Court must be satisfied that with the materials available, a case is made out for the accused to stand trial. A strong suspicion suffices. However, a strong suspicion must be founded on some material. The material must be such as can be translated into evidence at the stage of trial. The strong suspicion cannot be the pure subjective satisfaction based on the moral notions of the Judge that here is a case where it is possible that accused has committed the offence. Strong suspicion must be the suspicion which is premised on some material which commends itself to the court as sufficient to entertain the prima facie view that the accused has committed the offence.”

10. Recently, in Vikram Johar vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and Another reported as 2019 SCC OnLine SC 609 it was held:

“19. It is, thus, clear that while considering the discharge application, the Court is to exercise its judicial mind to determine whether a case for trial has been made out or not. It is true that in such proceedings, the Court is not to hold the mini trial by marshalling the evidence.”

wherein it is the duty of the court to apply its judicial mind to the material placed before it and to come to a clear
conclusion that a prima facie case has been made out against the accused. An order for framing of charges is of serious concern to the accused as it affects his liberty substantially. Courts must therefore be cautious that their decision at this stage causes no irreparable harm to the accused.

Coming to the aspect of quashing of the charges, it is well settled that such exercise needs to be undertaken by the High Court in exceptional cases. It is also well settled that the
framing of charges being initial stages in the trial process, the court therein cannot base the decision of quashing the charge on the basis of the quality or quantity of evidence rather the enquiry must be limited to a prima facie examination. [refer to
State of Bihar vs. Ramesh Singh, 1977 CriLJ 1606].

IN SATISHCHANDRA RATANLAL SHAH the Hon’ble supreme court has recently quashed the charge 406 and 409 IPC