Sharvan Kumar Bareth, S/o. Bhudh Ram Bareth v. Union Of India Through Secretary Department Of Personnel And Training
2022-12-13
DEEPAK KUMAR TIWARI
body2022
DigiLaw.ai
ORDER : 1. On due consideration, office objection raised by the Registry regarding maintainability of the petition is overruled and with the consent of counsel for the parties the matter is heard finally. 2. This writ petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India has been filed to quash and set aside the material piece of evidence marked as Article ‘K’ and Article ‘L’ while recording the statement of PW-4 namely Chandrashekhar Rathore in CBI Case No.3/2016 pending before Special Judge for CBI Cases, Raipur in between (CBI Vs. Ramesh Kumar Koshle and one another). 3. Facts of the case, in nutshell, is that in pursuance of the trap proceedings, the team of Central Bureau of Investigation (for short “CBI”), while taking action on the complaint made by the complainant, caught petitioner No.1 – Shravan Kumar Bareth red handed at his residential premises on 05.07.2016 and recovered bribe amount of Rs.50,000/- from his possession. Thereafter, petitioner No.1 in order to prove his claim that he had accepted the bribe on behalf of petitioner No.2 – Ramesh Kumar Koshle, voluntarily agreed to make a phone call to him and also agreed to deliver the bribe to him. The conversation between them was recorded through digital voice recorder (DVR) and stored in Micro SD Card and the same was produced during the recording of evidence of PW-4 namely Chandrashekhar Rathore in paragraph 43 and 44 and marked as Article ‘K’ and Article ‘L’. However, during recording of the evidence of PW-4, no objection was raised by the petitioners about the admissibility of the said piece of evidence and no point has been raised. Now the same is challenged in this writ petition invoking the jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. 4. Shri Sharma, learned counsel for the petitioners would submit that trial Court by exhibiting the Micro SD Card which stores the call recording as Article K and Article L is violative of Article 20 (3) of the Constitution of India as the Constitution provides immunity to an accused against self incrimination and no person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. He would further submits that implantation of DVR and compelling the accused to trap another accused, thereafter, using such material is not permissible under ethos of the constitutional sprit.
He would further submits that implantation of DVR and compelling the accused to trap another accused, thereafter, using such material is not permissible under ethos of the constitutional sprit. Further, the trial Court has wrongly exhibited the aforesaid inadmissible piece of evidence by assuming that it may be used against the petitioners which is also violative in light of the various decisions passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court. He would place reliance in the celebrated judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Selvi and others Vs. State of Karnataka reported in (2010) 7 SCC 263 and draws attention of this Court to paragraph 89 and 90. He would further place reliance in the matter of Munikrishna @ Krishna Vs. State of Ulssor PS reported in 2022 SCC Online SC 1449 and would submit that in the said case the principle was laid down that an accused cannot be compelled to be a witness against himself. In the said case the observation was also made about the illegality committed by the trial Court while exhibiting the DVD statement. He finally submits that considering the aforesaid aspects, this writ petition may be allowed and further prays to quash the piece of evidence i.e. Article ‘K’ and Article ‘L’ which have been marked in the statement of PW-4 Chandrashekhar Rathore. 5. On the other hand, Shri Himanshu Pandey, learned counsel for the respondents No.2 and 3 submits that the petitioners have filed this writ petition at premature stage as it is settled principle that in criminal trial, evidence cannot be read in isolation and the same cannot be judged at premature stage at the time of recording of evidence. He would further submit that mere marking of Article ‘K’ and Article ‘L’ (Micro SD Cards) does not violate Article 20 (3) of the Constitution of India and by marking of such evidence, no prejudice would be caused to the petitioners as the trial is still going on and the trial Court has not expressed any opinion on the nature of evidence and the petitioners have also not raised any question in this regard. He lastly submits that as the petitioners have not raised any objection during the marking of exhibits and directly approached to this High Court, on that count also, this petition is liable to be dismissed. He would place reliance in the matter of Bipin Shantilal Panchal Vs.
He lastly submits that as the petitioners have not raised any objection during the marking of exhibits and directly approached to this High Court, on that count also, this petition is liable to be dismissed. He would place reliance in the matter of Bipin Shantilal Panchal Vs. State of Gujrat reported in (2001) 3 SCC 1 . In the said matter, the Supreme Court, in explicit terms, clarified the procedure and issued directions to the trial judges about objections raised during recording of evidence about admissibility of material in evidence and the only course opened to the trial Court is to make note of such objection and mark the document tentatively as an exhibit in the case, subject to such objections to be decided at the last stage of the final judgment. He further draws the attention of this Court to the relevant paragraphs of the said judgment which reads thus:- “12. As pointed out earlier, on different occasions the trial judge has chosen to decide questions of admissibility of documents or other items of evidence, as and when objections thereto were raised and then detailed orders were passed either upholding or overruling such objections. The worse part is that after passing the orders the trial court waited for days and weeks for the concerned parties to go before the higher courts for the purpose of challenging such interlocutory orders. 13. It is an archaic practice that during the evidence collecting stage, whenever any objection is raised regarding admissibility of any material in evidence the court does not proceed further without passing order on such objection. But the fall out of the above practice is this: Suppose the trial court, in a case, upholds a particular objection and excludes the material from being admitted in evidence and then proceeds with the trial and disposes of the case finally. If the appellate or revisional court, when the same question is re-canvassed, could take a different view on the admissibility of that material in such cases the appellate court would be deprived of the benefit of that evidence, because that was not put on record by the trial court. In such a situation the higher court may have to send the case back to the trial court for recording that evidence and then to dispose of the case afresh.
In such a situation the higher court may have to send the case back to the trial court for recording that evidence and then to dispose of the case afresh. Why should the trial prolong like that unnecessarily on account of practices created by ourselves. Such practices, when realised through the course of long period to be hindrances which impede steady and swift progress of trial proceedings, must be recast or re-moulded to give way for better substitutes which would help acceleration of trial proceedings. 14. When so recast, the practice which can be a better substitute is this: Whenever an objection is raised during evidence taking stage regarding the admissibility of any material or item of oral evidence the trial court can make a note of such objection and mark the objected document tentatively as an exhibit in the case (or record the objected part of the oral evidence) subject to such objections to be decided at the last stage in the final judgment. If the court finds at the final stage that the objection so raised is sustainable the judge or magistrate can keep such evidence excluded from consideration. In our view there is no illegality in adopting such a course. (However, we make it clear that if the objection relates to deficiency of stamp duty of a document the court has to decide the objection before proceeding further. For all other objections the procedure suggested above can be followed.) 15. The above procedure, if followed, will have two advantages. First is that the time in the trial court, during evidence taking stage, would not be wasted on account of raising such objections and the court can continue to examine the witnesses. The witnesses need not wait for long hours, if not days. Second is that the superior court, when the same objection is recanvassed and reconsidered in appeal or revision against the final judgment of the trial court, can determine the correctness of the view taken by the trial court regarding that objection, without bothering to remit the case to the trial court again for fresh disposal. We may also point out that this measure would not cause any prejudice to the parties to the litigation and would not add to their misery or expenses. 16.
We may also point out that this measure would not cause any prejudice to the parties to the litigation and would not add to their misery or expenses. 16. We, therefore, make the above as a procedure to be followed by the trial courts whenever an objection is raised regarding the admissibility of any material or any item of oral evidence.” Lastly, counsel for the respondents jointly submits that considering the aforesaid submission and aspects, this petition may be dismissed. 6. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the documents annexed with the petition with utmost circumspection. 7. I have considered the submission of learned counsel for the parties and considered the points which have been raised before this Court about inadmissible part of the evidence while recording the statement of Chandrashekhar Rathore (PW-4). This Court finds that no objection has been raised during the course of examination of such witness and the trial Court has not expressed any opinion on the nature of evidence. Further, the matter is still pending before the trial Court and at the stage of final hearing, the petitioner would be at liberty to raise the issue about the weightage and quality of such evidence. This Court also observes that no prejudice has been caused to any party while marking the such piece of evidence. Further, the judgment referred by learned counsel for the petitioners are distinguishable on facts. Therefore, this Court is of the view that while marking such piece of evidence, no constitutional violation has been made and thus no intervention is warranted during the stage of recording of evidence. It is still open for the petitioners to raise the said issue at the time of final hearing. 8. Resultantly, this Court finds no merit in the writ petition and the petition being misconceived is hereby dismissed.