TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2010 (7) TMI 1232
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....edh Singh Saini was, at that time, SSP Ludhiana. It was alleged by the complainant that he had enmity with owner of M/s Saini Motors and during his tenure as SSP, a number of cases were registered against the owner and other family members of M/s Saini Motors. Local police while conducting investigation of FIR No. 22 of 1994 found that there are business transactions between M/s Saini Motors and Walia family. So, local police roped in Walia family also along with Saini Motors in many criminal cases. Vinod Kumar and Ashish Kumar were members of Walia family. Vinod Kumar and Ashish Kumar filed petitions before the High Court about threat to their lives at the hands of police officials. Vinod Kumar went missing. He was last seen alive with accused Sumedh Singh Saini, SSP of Ludhiana, in the evening of 15th March, 1994. 3. After his disappearance, on a petition filed before the High Court, the High Court directed CBI to investigate the matter and to file progress report from time to time before the High Court. In the progress report filed by the CBI before the High Court in 1995, the CBI mentioned that till then it had recorded statements of about 70 persons and collected documents ....
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....parting justice. 4. Accused No. 2 SSP Sumedh Singh Saini in his application stated that there was sufficient material so show that missing person namely Vinod Kumar had a long criminal background and had a strong motive to abscond on 15th March, 1994 and there was also material to show that after he went missing on 15th March, 1994, he re-surfaced and met at least four independent and reliable witnesses. He also appeared in a court on a subsequent date. It was stated in the application that in its status report filed before the Punjab & Haryana High Court in 1995, CBI had submitted that it recorded statement of ASI Jagrup Singh, Ct. Surinder Singh, Ct. Gurnam Singh, Ct. Bhupinder Singh, Ct. Jagrup Singh, Ct. Baldev Singh, HC Harjit Singh, HC Kulwant Singh and HC Gurwinder Singh, but CBI filed statement of only HC Kulwant Singh and statements of remaining 8 persons were not placed on record. It is also stated that CBI had examined Darshan Singh, Gurdayal Singh, Om Prakash Sikka, Ashwini Sekhari and Rajesh Chadha but their statements were not placed on record. It was submitted by this accused (accused No. 2, Sumedh Singh Saini) that non supplying of these statements shall cause se....
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....tted that the accused has a right to move an application at the stage of cross examination and reliance was placed by the applicant on Rajeshwar Singhal v. CBI 2007 (3) JCC 2083. Kashinath Bhattacharjee v. State of Tripura and Anr. 2009 Cri. L.J. 1188 was relied upon to insist that not giving of reasons by the trial court for rejecting prayer for production of documents was bad in law. Reliance was placed on State of Kerala v. Raghavan etc. 1974 Cri. L.J. 1373 to impress that prosecution cannot pick and choose and refuse to supply to accused copies of statements which are contradictory to the prosecution case on the ground that the prosecution was not going to rely on these statements. State of Punjab v. Mohinder Singh and Ors. 1974 C.L.R. 301 was relied upon to plead that provisions of Sections 162, 173(4) and 207A(3) Cr.P.C. impose an obligation upon the prosecution agency to supply copies of statements of witnesses to enable the accused to obtain a clear picture of the case and enable the accused to utilize them during the course of cross examination to establish his defence. S.J. Chowdhary v. The State 1984 Cri. L.J. 964 was cited to impress upon the court that rejection of pra....
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....ho included a high police official, well versed in criminal law would be more complex. During investigation, in order to find out the evidence, the investigating agency may have to examine hundreds of persons to find out as to who were the persons who had knowledge of the facts concerning the crime. Merely because CBI tells the court that it has examined 70 persons, the accused does not get a right to ask that CBI should produce the statement of all 70 persons before him. The rights of the accused have been crystallized by the Cr.P.C. in categorical manner regarding copies. Under Section 207 Cr.P.C., the rights of accused are crystallized in respect of supply of document as follows: (i) The police report; (ii) The first information report recorded under Section 154: (iii) The statements recorded under Sub-section (3) of Section 161 of all persons whom the prosecution proposes to examine as its witnesses, excluding there from any part in regard to which a request for such exclusion has been made by the police officer under Sub-section (6) of Section 173. (iv) The confessions and statements, if any, recorded under Section 164; (v) Any othe....
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....examined considering the stage when such a prayer for summoning and production is made and the party who makes it, whether police or accused. If under Section 207 what is necessary and relevant is only the record produced in terms of Section 173 of the Code, the accused cannot at that stage invoke Section 91 to seek production of any document to show his innocence. Under Section 91 summons for production of document can be issued by Court and under a written order an officer in charge of police station can also direct production thereof. Section 91 does not confer any right on the accused to produce document in his possession to prove his defence. Section 91 presupposes that when the document is not produced process may be initiated to compel production thereof. 26. Reliance on behalf of the accused was placed on some observations made in the case of Om Parkash Sharma v. CBI 2000 Cri LJ 3478. In that case the application filed by the accused for summoning and production of documents was rejected by the Special Judge and that order was affirmed by the High Court. Challenging those orders before this Court, reliance was placed on behalf of the accused upon Satish Mehra's....
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....unsel for the parties tried to impress upon the court that PW-1 was under cross examination and the documents sought in the application should be allowed before cross examination of this witness was completed. However, it has not been stated either in the application moved by the accused persons or during the arguments before this Court that how statement of any of the persons mentioned in the application, or any of the unknown, unspecified documents allegedly in custody of CBI was relevant for cross examination of PW-1 or PW-2. The only argument made was that these documents were necessary for defence of the accused and no prejudice was going to be caused to CBI and these documents should be supplied to the applicants. 13. When imputations are put to an accused person in the form of charge, the only question put to the accused person is whether he pleads guilty or not. No question is asked to the accused as to what is his defence. The only defence which is taken in all criminal trials is the defence of innocence of accused persons. Even in summon trial cases, where the law provides that accused can be asked question as to his defence, normally the only defence taken is "I am in....
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....ing to affect their defence, the accused persons could not have asked for them. 16. The stage at which the applications are made by the accused persons i.e. when the examination of witnesses started after about 13 years of the incident itself, shows that the applications were made with the intention to delay the trial and not with an intention to take some specific defence. Moreover, trial court had given liberty to the accused persons to produce relied documents at the stage of defence. An argument is raised that by giving this liberty, the trial court has admitted the relevancy of the documents. I fail to understand how this argument could have been raised when neither trial court has seen nor the accused persons have seen the documents. The trial court could have commented upon the relevancy of documents had the same been seen by it. The documents/statements sought are in respect of a report made by CBI that it has examined 70 persons. It is not the case of CBI that those 70 persons were having knowledge of the facts of the case and were to be cited as witnesses in the case. 17. It is settled law that accused can demand copy of only those documents/statements on which reli....