There Cannot Be Piecemeal Disclosure Of Material On Which Prosecution Seeks To Base Its Case: Delhi HC Rejects CBI's Plea To Place On Record HDDs In Corruption Case
The Delhi High Court observed that there cannot be a piecemeal disclosure of material on which the prosecution seeks to base its case.
The Court observed thus in a petition preferred by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seeking to place on record hard disks (HDDs) containing video footage of Hotel Sheraton as additional documents.
A Single Bench of Justice Vikas Mahajan held, “It is a cardinal principle of criminal jurisprudence that the accused is to be supplied with all documents that the prosecution seeks to rely upon, before the commencement of the trial. There cannot be piecemeal disclosure of material on which the prosecution seeks to base its case. The requirement to disclose the entire incriminating material prior to framing of charge stems from the right of the accused of fair opportunity to meet the case of the prosecution and to effectively put forth the defence.”
SPP Atul Guleria represented the petitioner while Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal, Mohit Mathur, and P.K. Dubey represented the respondents.
In this case, it was alleged that the relevant extracts from the said HDDs containing video footage were filed in the form of CD and also supplied to the accused persons, but the High Court while discharging accused no.3 and accused no.5 vide an order had observed that “audio and video CDs in question were clearly inadmissible in evidence for want of required certificate in terms of Section 65B of the Evidence Act. Therefore, it became imperative for the just decision of the case to place on record HDDs containing video footage, the same being primary evidence, to prove the allegations levelled in the chargesheet against the accused persons.
The High Court in view of the above facts noted, “To elaborate, such requirement is imperative to afford a meaningful opportunity to the accused to defend at the following stages - firstly, prior to commencement of trial to enable the accused to contest the framing of charge and seek discharge. Secondly, in case the accused fails to seek discharge, he should have fair opportunity to cross-examine prosecution witnesses and put his defence to them. Thirdly, to enter on his defence and adduce any evidence in support thereof.”
The Court added that the requirement of such full disclosure is an extremely valuable right and an essential feature of the right to a fair trial as it enables the accused to prepare for the trial before its commencement.
“The upshot of above discussion is that the learned Trial Court was justified in dismissing the application of the petitioner/CBI under Section 91 CrPC. No ground is made out by the petitioner to interfere with the decision of the learned Trial Court”, it said.
Accordingly, the High Court dismissed the petition.
Cause Title- Central Bureau of Investigation v. R. Vasudevan & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024:DHC:4239)
Appearance:
Petitioner: SPP Atul Guleria and Advocate Shubham Goyal.
Respondents: Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal, Mohit Mathur, P.K. Dubey, Advocates Atul Buchar, Arshdeep Khurana, C. Kanojia, C.B. Bansal, Mudit Jain, Ayush Goswami, Rudraksh Nokra, Vinod Kumar, Rohit Bhardwaj, Harsh Srivastava, Ankur Khurana, Shashank Sharma, and Shiv Nath Sawhney.