MOHD AMJATH ALI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner/20th accused in Sessions Case No.2 of 2000 pending on the file of the Court of the Sessions Judge for trial of Bomb Blast Cases, Coimbatore who is alleged to be facing serious allegations such as that he acted as a `human bomb' in the bomb blasts that took place in Coimbatore and facing the charges under Sections 302 IPC (four counts), 120-B, 307 IPC and under various Sections of the Indian Explosives Act, has come forward to file the above criminal revision case praying to call for the entire records connected to the impugned order dated 3.10.2002 made in Crl.M.P.No.440 of 2002 by the trial Court and quash the same further directing the trial Court to permit the petitioner to engage a counsel of his choice to defend him in the Sessions Case No.2 of 2000 onStateBrief.

(2.) THE averments of the petition are that the petitioner is aged about 23 years and initially he engaged the defence counsel on his own, but the case has taken nearly four years to attain the pre-trial stage itself, during which period he was confined in Central Prison, Coimbatore that when the trial commenced, he was given to understand that there were around 2500 prosecution witnesses and at the rate if the trial is held for four days in a week, as is done, it would take nearly 3 to 4 years for those evidence to be brought on record and for this length of period, the petitioner could not afford to bear the cost of a private defence counsel and therefore he filed a petition on 27.9.2002 before the trial Court seeking to permit him to engage aStateBrief Advocate at the cost of theStatein Crl.M.P.No.440 of 2002 in the said Sessions Case, but holding that the petitioner was undefended and was not being represented by a counsel, the case was adjourned to 3.10.2002 and on that day, he was asked to choose a counsel from out of the 26StateBrief Advocates who were already on record that the petitioner expressed his desire to engage a counsel of his choice from outside the panel as the 27thStateBrief counsel since originally the Government had sanctioned 27StateBrief Advocates to conduct the trial in the said case and in the vacant place, the petitioner could be provided with to appoint a counsel of his choice that on 3.10.2002, the trial Court rejected the petitioner's plea for engaging an Advocate of his choice to defend him onStateBrief and appointed one Mr.Dhanaraj Cangan as the petitioner's counsel onStateBrief, which is arbitrary, illegal and against the principles enunciated by the upper forums of law and hence the same is liable to be set aside.

(3.) IN the first judgment cited above, a Constitution Bench of the Honourable Apex Court has held:"The Criminal P.C. allows the right to be defended by counsel but that is not a guaranteed right. The framers of the Constitution have well-thought of this right and by including the prescription in the Constitution have put it beyond the power of any authority to alter it without the Constitution being altered.""A person arrested and put on his defence against a criminal charge, which may result in penalty, is entitled to the right to defend himself with the aid of counsel and any law that takes away this right offends the Constitution."So holding, the Honourable Apex Court has held Section 63 of the Madhya Bharat Panchayat Act, as void being inconsistent with Art.22(1) of the Constitution in so far as it took away the right of an arrested person to be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice.