SHAIK BASHA Vs. STATE OF A P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "Delay defeats justice" squarely applies to the present case. What happened was that the accused were produced before the Court of Magistrate under Section 167 of the Code of Criminal Procedure ('the Code' for brevity) for remand on 10-10-2001 having arrested them on 9-10-2001. They were accordingly remanded to judicial custody on that day. On 19-10-2001 it appears that the Investigating Officer filed a requisition before the Court of Magistrate seeking police custody of the accused for the purpose of obtaining blood samples for DNA test and interrogate them with reference to a lie detector. That application was dismissed by the learned Magistrate on the very same day. Having been aggrieved by the same, the Investigating Agency carried the matter in revision before the Sessions Court in Crl.R.P.No.73 of 2001. The learned Additional Sessions Judge, Krishna at Machilipatnam, under the impugned order allowed the revision petition by granting police custody of the accused for 15 days with a direction to take the assistance of the respondents therein for investigation without resorting to any third decree methods. The impugned order came to be passed on 10-12-2001 oblivious of the fact that by 10-12-2001 more than the period of 15 days, as envisaged under sub-section (2) of Section 167 of the Code, had been elapsed. It is pertinent here to consider the provisions of Section 167(2) of the Code which reads as under:

(2.) A perusal of the said provisions itself shows that on the production of the accused before the Court under Section 167 of the Code the Court can remand the accused to the custody for the first period of 15 days and that custody may be either judicial custody or police custody. The position is no more res Integra and has been squarely covered by a judgment of the Apex Court in CBL, Special Investigation Cell-I, New Delhi v. Anupam J. Kulkarni, AIR 1992 SC 1768. In that case, in para 8 at page 1776 it was held by the Apex Court thus:

(3.) In fact, in the instant, case, the revision petition itself was filed long after the period of 15 days and therefore by that time even the request of the police seeking police custody of the accused could not have been considered in view of the legislative mandate engrafted under sub-section (2) of Section 167 of the Code. Even after filing of the revision petition two months period has been elapsed for passing the impugned order. Therefore, the learned Judge ought to have dismissed the revision petition.