The Karnataka High Court has held "It is incumbent on the courts to state reasons with reference to the material on record on which reliance is placed to formulate an opinion to reject the application for discharge."

The court while allowing a petition filed by one Santosh Kumar, and setting aside order passed by lower court rejecting discharge plea filed by him said "The reading of the said order would reflect non-application of mind by the learned JMFC."

Kumar had approached the high court challenging orders passed by the JMFC and Revisional court in a case registered against him under sections 498 A, 323, 504, 506 read with Section 34 of IPC and Section 3, 4, 5 & 6 of Dowry Prohibition Act.

The JMFC court while rejecting the plea made a general observation that on perusal of the entire material on record, there is a sufficient material of harassment by respondent and in the same breadth it further observed that at this stage participation of accused in the alleged offences can not be decided on the basis of material available on record".

Court said:

In the instant case, neither the court of the JMFC nor the revisional court have passed the orders with reference to any particular material which demonstrates a prima-facie case of non-application of mind.

Relying on order passed by Apex Court in the case of Yogesh @ Sachin Jagdish Vs. State of Maharashtra, said disposal of a petition for discharge would postulate exercise of judicial mind which is conspicuously absent in the exercise rendered by both the courts below. On that short ground, the matter requires to be remitted back to the court of the JMFC for reconsideration within an outer limit of one month from the date of receipt of the certified copy of this order