made by the complainant in support of the complaint, the documentary evidence in support of the allegations, if any, produced by him as well as statements of any witness the complainant may choose to produce to stand by the allegations in the complaint. Although we are not concerned with Section 202 here, if an inquiry or an investigation is conducted thereunder, it goes without saying that the reports should also be looked into by the Magistrate before issuing process Under Section 204. However, there can be no gainsaying that at the stage the Magistrate decides to pass an order summoning the Accused, examination of the nature referred to above ought not to be intended for forming an opinion as to whether the materials are sufficient for a 'conviction'; instead, he is required to form an opinion whether the materials are sufficient for 'proceeding' as the title of the relevant chapter would indicate. Since the Accused does not enter the arena at that stage, question of the Accused raising a defence to thwart issuance of process does not arise. Nonetheless, the fact that the Accused is not before the Magistrate does not mean that the Magistrate need not apply his judicial mind. Nothing in the applicable law prevents the Magistrate from applying his judicial mind to other provisions of law and to ascertain whether, prima facie, an "offence", as defined in Section 2(n) of the Code of Criminal Procedure is made out. Without such opinion being formed, question of "proceeding" as in Section 204 does not arise. What the law imposes on the Magistrate as a requirement is that he is bound to consider only such of the materials that are brought before him in terms of Sections 200 and 202 as well as any applicable provision of a statute, and what is imposed as a restriction by law on him is that he is precluded from considering any material not brought on the record in a manner permitted by the legal process. As a logical corollary to the above proposition, what follows is that the Magistrate while deciding whether to issue process is entitled to form a view looking into the materials before him. If, however, such materials themselves disclose a complete defence under any of the Exceptions, nothing prevents the Magistrate upon application of judicial mind to accord the benefit of such Exception to prevent a frivolous complaint from triggering an unnecessary trial. Since initiation of prosecution is a serious matter, we are minded to say that it would be the duty of the Magistrate to prevent false and Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:ZEENAT PRAVEEN Signing Date:05.02.2024 16:25:50 CRL.M.C. 6347/2019 Page 29 of 50