New Delhi, Feb. 12 -- The criminal process itself cannot become a punishment, the Supreme Court has emphasised, cautioning trial courts against permitting prosecutions to proceed in the absence of a prima facie case. Stressing that judges must carefully scrutinise the material before framing charges, a bench of justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh said that allowing a case to go on without legal basis exposes an accused to the "strain, stigma and uncertainty of criminal proceedings without necessity". "Fidelity to the rule of law requires the court to remember that the process itself can become the punishment if this responsibility is not exercised with care," held the bench in its judgment, which was made available on Wednesday. The court underscored that at the stage of framing penal charges or considering discharge, judges are not engaged in an abstract legal exercise but are dealing with "real people, real anxieties, and the real weight of criminal prosecution". The power to frame charges, it said, is not meant to be exercised by default or merely as a matter of caution. If the material on record, taken at face value, does not disclose the ingredients of an offence, courts are expected to "have the clarity and courage" to discharge the accused. "Discharge, in that sense, is not a technical indulgence but an essential safeguard. The Court must consciously distinguish between a genuine case that warrants a trial and one that rests only on suspicion or assumption or for that matter without any basis," it emphasised. The observations came as the bench on Tuesday quashed criminal proceedings against Anand Rai, the whistleblower in the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, insofar as they related to offences under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The bench held that the material on record did not disclose the essential ingredients required to attract offences under the SC/ST Act. It noted that the trial court itself had acknowledged that statements recorded during investigation did not mention specific caste-based slurs or allegations demonstrating intent to insult or intimidate on the basis of caste. The bench found fault with the Madhya Pradesh high court's July 2025 order upholding the framing of charges, noting that it did not independently examine the applicability of the SC/ST Act provisions. While quashing the charges under the SC/ST Act, the court clarified that its findings were confined to the SC/ST Act charges....