LAWS(DLH)-1996-1-22

SURINDER KUMAR Vs. STATE

Decided On January 08, 1996
SURRINDER KUMAR Appellant
V/S
STATE OF DELHI Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living and a vigilant Judge. It is not for nothing that it is said that the world can be re- imagined and reinvented through the rule of law in the court room. Unfortunately what one notices in this case is not that hand that paints Rembrandt or a Van Gogh but a shadow. What is enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution is consequently, the first victim.

(2.) The appellant has been convicted under Section 392 of the Penal Code and has been sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for five years. His grievance is that during the trial he was unrepresented and was made to conduct the proceedings and to defend himself without the assistance of a lawyer though he is illiterate and ignorant of the rules of the game and that the learned trial Judge neither thought of coming to his help by lending his own skills nor by even offering a lawyer at State expense. Unfortunately, the record supports him. The learned Judge just overlooked it. He probably took it to be of no consequence. He also took no serious note of the fact that the accused could not be credited with the skill and knowledge essential to prepare his defence and that he needed the guiding hand of a counsel at every step of the proceeding against him.

(3.) As far back as in the year 1979 the Supreme Court had emphasised in Hussain Ara Khatoon vs. State of Bihar;AIR 1979 Supreme Court 1369 that free legal service is an inalienable element of reasonable, fair and just procedure and that the right to free legal service must be held implicit in the guarantee of Article 21. In Khatri Vs. State of Bihar; 1981 Criminal Law Journal 470 the Supreme Court again laid emphasis to provide free legal services and termed it as a "Constitutional obligation". In Sukh Das v. Union Territory of Arunachal Pradesh 1986 Cri LJ 1084, it was re-emphasised by the Supreme Court that entitlement to free legal aid is not dependent on the accused making an application to that effect and that the court is obliged to inform the accused of his right to obtain free legal aid.