In a significant effort to improve the criminal justice system, the Supreme. Court today issued notice to all High Courts and States seeking their response on suggestions made by Senior Advocate R Basant to address deficiencies in criminal trials..The order to that effect was passed by a Bench of Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao today in a criminal appeal from Kerala..During the course of his arguments for the appellants, Basant had pointed out certain common inadequacies and deficiencies in the course of trial adopted by the trial court while disposing of criminal cases..“In particular, it was pointed out that though there are beneficial provisions in the Rules of some of the High Courts which ensure that certain documents such as list of witnesses and the list of exhibits/material objects referred to, are annexed to the judgment and order itself of the trial court, these features do not exist in Rules of some other High Courts. Undoubtedly, the judgments and orders of the trial court which have such lists annexed, can be appreciated much better by the appellate courts.”.The order then sets out the suggestions made by the Senior Counsel, which are as follows:.“A. In the course of discussions at the Bar while considering this case, this Court had generally adverted to certain common inadequacies and imperfections that occur in the criminal trials in our country. I venture to suggest that in the interests of better administration of criminal justice and to usher in a certain amount of uniformity, and acceptance of best practices prevailing over various parts of India, this Court may consider issue of certain general guidelines to be followed across the board by all Criminal Courts in the country..B. The following areas may be considered specifically:. The pernicious practice of the Trial Judge leaving the recording of deposition to the clerk concerned and recording of evidence going on in more than one case in the same Court room, at the same time, under the presence and general supervision of the presiding officer has to be disapproved strongly and discontinued forthwith. A visit to Delhi Trial Courts any day will reveal this sad state of affairs, I am given to understand. The depositions of witnesses must be recorded, in typed format, using computers, in Court, to the dictation of the presiding officers (in English wherever possible) so that readable true copies will be available straightaway and can be issued to both sides on the date of examination itself. The deposition of each witness must be recorded dividing it into separate paragraphs assigning para numbers to facilitate easy reference to specific portions later in the course of arguments and in Judgments. Witnesses/documents/material objects be assigned specific nomenclature and numbers like PWs/DWs/CWs (1 onwards); Ext. P/Ext. D/Ext. C (1 onwards); MOs (1 onwards) etc., so that reference later becomes easy and less time-consuming. Every judgment must mandatorily have a preface showing the name of the parties and an appendix showing the list of Prosecutions Witnesses, Prosecution Exhibits, Defence Witnesses, Defence Exhibits, Court witnesses, Court Exhibits and Material Objects. Once numbers are assigned to the accused, witnesses and exhibits, they be referred to, subsequently in the proceedings and in the judgments with the help of such numbers only. The practice of referring to the names of the accused/witnesses and documents descriptively in the proceedings paper and judgments creates a lot of confusion. Whenever there is need to refer to them by name their rank as Accused/Witness must be shown in brackets. Repetition of pleadings, evidence, and arguments in the judgments and orders of the Trial Court, Appellate and Revisional Courts be avoided. Repetition of facts, evidence, and contentions before lower Courts make the judgments cumbersome, and takes away the precious time of the Court unnecessarily. The Appellate/Revisional Court judgment/order is the continuation of the lower court judgment and must ideally start with “ in this appeal/revision, the impugned judgment is assailed on the following grounds” or “the points that arise for consideration in this appeal/revision are”. This does not of course, take away the option/jurisdiction of the Appellate/Revisional Courts to re-narrate facts and contentions if they be inadequately or insufficiently narrated in the judgment. Mechanical re narration to be avoided at any rate. In every case file, a judgment folder to be maintained, and the first para in the appellate/revisional judgment to be numbered as the next paragraph after the last para in the impugned judgment. This would cater to a better culture of judgment writing saving precious court time. The healthy practice in some states of the Investigating Officer obtaining and producing (or the wound certificate/ post mortem certificate showing) the front and rear sketch of the human torso showing the injuries listed in the medical documents specifically, may be uniformly insisted. This would help the judges to have a clearer and surer understanding of the situs of the injuries. Marking of contradictions – A healthy practice of marking the contradictions/Omissions properly does not appear to exist in several States. Ideally the relevant portions of case diary statement used for contradicting a witness must be extracted fully in the deposition. If the same is cumbersome at least the opening and closing words of the contradiction in the case diary statement must be referred to in the deposition and marked separately as a Prosecution/Defence exhibit. The practice of omnibus marking of S. 164 statement of witness deserves to be deprecated. The relevant portion of such prior statements of living persons used for contradiction or corroboration U/s. 145/157 of the Evidence Act deserves to be marked separately and specifically. The practice of whole sale marking of confession statement of accused persons for introduction of the relevant statement admissible under S. 27 of Evidence Act deserves to be deprecated. Ideally the admissible portion and that portion alone, must be extracted in the recovery memos (Mahazar or Panch – different nomenclature used in different parts of the land) within inverted commas. Otherwise the relevant portion alone written separately must be proved by the Investigating Officer. Back door access to inadmissible evidence by marking the entire confession statement in the attempt to prove the admissible portion under S. 27 of Evidence Act should be strictly avoided. The Trial Courts must be mandatorily obliged to specify in the Judgment the period of set off under Section 428 Cr.P.C specifying date and not leave it to be resolved later by jail authorities or successor presiding officers. The Judgements and the consequent warrant of committal must specify the period of set off clearly..The Court proceeded to issue notice to the High Courts and States to solicit their views with respect to the submissions made by the Senior Counsel..“In the circumstances, we direct that notices be issued to the Registrars General of all the High Courts, and the Chief Secretaries/the Administrators and the Advocates-General/Senior Standing Counsel of all the States/Union Territories, so that general consensus can be arrived at on the need to amend the relevant Rules of Practice/ Criminal Manuals to bring about uniform best practices across the country. This Court may also consider issuance of directions under Article 142 of the Constitution. They can be given the option to give suggestions also on other areas of concern.” .Read the order below..Image courtesy: The Hindu
In a significant effort to improve the criminal justice system, the Supreme. Court today issued notice to all High Courts and States seeking their response on suggestions made by Senior Advocate R Basant to address deficiencies in criminal trials..The order to that effect was passed by a Bench of Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao today in a criminal appeal from Kerala..During the course of his arguments for the appellants, Basant had pointed out certain common inadequacies and deficiencies in the course of trial adopted by the trial court while disposing of criminal cases..“In particular, it was pointed out that though there are beneficial provisions in the Rules of some of the High Courts which ensure that certain documents such as list of witnesses and the list of exhibits/material objects referred to, are annexed to the judgment and order itself of the trial court, these features do not exist in Rules of some other High Courts. Undoubtedly, the judgments and orders of the trial court which have such lists annexed, can be appreciated much better by the appellate courts.”.The order then sets out the suggestions made by the Senior Counsel, which are as follows:.“A. In the course of discussions at the Bar while considering this case, this Court had generally adverted to certain common inadequacies and imperfections that occur in the criminal trials in our country. I venture to suggest that in the interests of better administration of criminal justice and to usher in a certain amount of uniformity, and acceptance of best practices prevailing over various parts of India, this Court may consider issue of certain general guidelines to be followed across the board by all Criminal Courts in the country..B. The following areas may be considered specifically:. The pernicious practice of the Trial Judge leaving the recording of deposition to the clerk concerned and recording of evidence going on in more than one case in the same Court room, at the same time, under the presence and general supervision of the presiding officer has to be disapproved strongly and discontinued forthwith. A visit to Delhi Trial Courts any day will reveal this sad state of affairs, I am given to understand. The depositions of witnesses must be recorded, in typed format, using computers, in Court, to the dictation of the presiding officers (in English wherever possible) so that readable true copies will be available straightaway and can be issued to both sides on the date of examination itself. The deposition of each witness must be recorded dividing it into separate paragraphs assigning para numbers to facilitate easy reference to specific portions later in the course of arguments and in Judgments. Witnesses/documents/material objects be assigned specific nomenclature and numbers like PWs/DWs/CWs (1 onwards); Ext. P/Ext. D/Ext. C (1 onwards); MOs (1 onwards) etc., so that reference later becomes easy and less time-consuming. Every judgment must mandatorily have a preface showing the name of the parties and an appendix showing the list of Prosecutions Witnesses, Prosecution Exhibits, Defence Witnesses, Defence Exhibits, Court witnesses, Court Exhibits and Material Objects. Once numbers are assigned to the accused, witnesses and exhibits, they be referred to, subsequently in the proceedings and in the judgments with the help of such numbers only. The practice of referring to the names of the accused/witnesses and documents descriptively in the proceedings paper and judgments creates a lot of confusion. Whenever there is need to refer to them by name their rank as Accused/Witness must be shown in brackets. Repetition of pleadings, evidence, and arguments in the judgments and orders of the Trial Court, Appellate and Revisional Courts be avoided. Repetition of facts, evidence, and contentions before lower Courts make the judgments cumbersome, and takes away the precious time of the Court unnecessarily. The Appellate/Revisional Court judgment/order is the continuation of the lower court judgment and must ideally start with “ in this appeal/revision, the impugned judgment is assailed on the following grounds” or “the points that arise for consideration in this appeal/revision are”. This does not of course, take away the option/jurisdiction of the Appellate/Revisional Courts to re-narrate facts and contentions if they be inadequately or insufficiently narrated in the judgment. Mechanical re narration to be avoided at any rate. In every case file, a judgment folder to be maintained, and the first para in the appellate/revisional judgment to be numbered as the next paragraph after the last para in the impugned judgment. This would cater to a better culture of judgment writing saving precious court time. The healthy practice in some states of the Investigating Officer obtaining and producing (or the wound certificate/ post mortem certificate showing) the front and rear sketch of the human torso showing the injuries listed in the medical documents specifically, may be uniformly insisted. This would help the judges to have a clearer and surer understanding of the situs of the injuries. Marking of contradictions – A healthy practice of marking the contradictions/Omissions properly does not appear to exist in several States. Ideally the relevant portions of case diary statement used for contradicting a witness must be extracted fully in the deposition. If the same is cumbersome at least the opening and closing words of the contradiction in the case diary statement must be referred to in the deposition and marked separately as a Prosecution/Defence exhibit. The practice of omnibus marking of S. 164 statement of witness deserves to be deprecated. The relevant portion of such prior statements of living persons used for contradiction or corroboration U/s. 145/157 of the Evidence Act deserves to be marked separately and specifically. The practice of whole sale marking of confession statement of accused persons for introduction of the relevant statement admissible under S. 27 of Evidence Act deserves to be deprecated. Ideally the admissible portion and that portion alone, must be extracted in the recovery memos (Mahazar or Panch – different nomenclature used in different parts of the land) within inverted commas. Otherwise the relevant portion alone written separately must be proved by the Investigating Officer. Back door access to inadmissible evidence by marking the entire confession statement in the attempt to prove the admissible portion under S. 27 of Evidence Act should be strictly avoided. The Trial Courts must be mandatorily obliged to specify in the Judgment the period of set off under Section 428 Cr.P.C specifying date and not leave it to be resolved later by jail authorities or successor presiding officers. The Judgements and the consequent warrant of committal must specify the period of set off clearly..The Court proceeded to issue notice to the High Courts and States to solicit their views with respect to the submissions made by the Senior Counsel..“In the circumstances, we direct that notices be issued to the Registrars General of all the High Courts, and the Chief Secretaries/the Administrators and the Advocates-General/Senior Standing Counsel of all the States/Union Territories, so that general consensus can be arrived at on the need to amend the relevant Rules of Practice/ Criminal Manuals to bring about uniform best practices across the country. This Court may also consider issuance of directions under Article 142 of the Constitution. They can be given the option to give suggestions also on other areas of concern.” .Read the order below..Image courtesy: The Hindu
