BHAGAT SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner along with five others is on trial in the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Amritsar (Shri H.S. Mander) under sections 302/148/149. Indian Penal Code. As per the report of the police under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Mangat Ram, Puro and Shankar Dass have been cited as eye-witnesses of the occurrence. During the course of trial, he applied to the trial Court for the supply of the statements of these witnesses which, according to him, were recorded by Shri Darshan Singh, Superintendent of Police, Crime Branch, (C.I.D.) Punjab during the further investigation in terms of sub-section (8) of section 173. This prayer of the petitioner was declined on a contest having been raised by the Additional Public Prosecutor on the plea that since the prosecution was not relying on the statements of the witnesses recorded by Darshan Singh. Superintendent of Police, the accused was not entitled to have copies of those statements for the use under section 145 of the Indian Evidence Act. The learned Prosecutor supported his plea with a judgment of this Court in Criminal Revision No. 792 of 1986 (Mangal Singh and another v. State of Punjab) decided on July 24, 1986. This judgment undisputedly supports the proposition as urged by the Prosecutor.

(2.) THE learned counsel for the petitioner urges with some amount of vehemence, that the above noted proposition of law not only runs counter to the fundamental principle of assisting the accused in establishing his innocence during the course of a judicial trial, but is also contrary to an earlier Judgment of this Court in Naib Singh and others v. Gurdev Singh, 1976 C.L.R. (P&H) 144, wherein it has been laid down that the jurisdiction of the police to record the statements of the witnesses during the course of enquiry or investigation is enshrined in Chapter 12 (Chapter 14 prior to the amendment of the Code in 1973), or section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure only, and it does not matter whether as a result of the investigation carried out under this Chapter, the police submits a report or not under section 173 of the Code. It is patent that the statements of the witnesses recorded during the course of enquiry or investigation by the police or any subsequent investigation in terms of sub-section (8) of section 173 would continue to the statements recorded under section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Even if in the light of the subsequent material collected or the statements recorded by the police, it does not choose to put forth any additional report before the Court, the statements so recorded would nonetheless remain statements under section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. These statements essentially would also be the previous statements of the witnesses and the accused, to my mind, would certainly be entitled to get copies of these statements for purposes of use in terms of section 145 of the Indian Evidence Act. If I may say so, the whole purpose of laying down the elaborate procedure under the Criminal Procedure Code for recording the evidence in the light of the Indian Evidence Act is to entitle. The person on trial to establish his innocence rather than to prejudice him during the course of such a trial. I, therefore, find it difficult to sustain the impugned order which is set aside. At this stage, Mr. Bachhittar Singh, learned counsel appearing for the respondent-State, informs me that out of the above noted three eye-witnesses, copies of whose subsequent statements are sought for by the petitioner, only the statement of Mangat Ram P.W. was recorded by Darshan Singh, Superintendent of Police, C.I.D. Punjab and the statements of other witnesses were not recorded by him at all. In the right of this, the learned counsel for the petitioners confined his prayer to the supply of a copy of that statement of Mangat Ram P.W. alone as recorded by Darshan Singh named above. I, therefore, direct that the Prosecutor in the trial Court would supply a true copy of the statement of Mangat Ram P.W. as recorded by Darshan Singh, Superintendent of Police, C.I.D. Punjab to the petitioner before the recording of the statement of this witness by the trial Court.