Police case diary confidentiality limits accused's use of diary pages for cross-examination and contradiction.

A police case diary remains confidential and cannot be produced by the accused as of right. Section 172 CrPC permits the criminal court to call for and use the diary only for inquiry or trial, and its limited use arises when the police officer uses it to refresh memory or when the court uses it to contradict that officer, subject to the safeguards in Section 145 and Section 161 of the Evidence Act. The diary is not substantive evidence and cannot be used against witnesses other than the investigating officer. On these facts, independent production of diary pages to confront the witness was impermissible, and the order allowing it was unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether the accused could produce pages of the police diary obtained under the Right to Information Act for confronting the investigating officer during cross-examination, despite the restrictions under Section 172 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and Section 145 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.

Analysis: Section 172 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 permits the criminal court to call for and use the case diary to aid inquiry or trial, but the accused has no general right to call for or inspect the diary. The limited use contemplated by sub-section (3) arises only when the police officer uses the diary to refresh memory or when the court uses it to contradict that officer, in which event the safeguards of Section 145 and Section 161 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 apply. The diary cannot be treated as substantive evidence and cannot be deployed against witnesses other than the police officer who made it. Since neither the investigating officer refreshed his memory from the diary nor had the trial court used the entries to contradict him, the accused could not independently produce those pages to confront the witness.

Conclusion: The accused had no right to produce the police diary pages in the stated circumstances, and the High Court's order permitting such production was unsustainable.

Ratio Decidendi: A police case diary remains confidential and cannot be produced by the accused as a matter of right; it may be used only within the narrow statutory limits when the court or the police officer himself brings it into use in accordance with Section 172 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 and the evidence law safeguards.

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