Delhi Riots: Court orders Police to give accused hard copy of Chargesheet, says soft copy not enough under CrPC

A Karkardooma Court recently ordered the Delhi Police to give those accused in the Delhi Riots case a hard copy of the chargesheet filed in the matter (State of NCT of Delhi v. Tahir Hussain and Ors)..Rejecting submissions by the State that its provision of the chargesheet's soft copy on a pen drive to the accused was sufficient compliance of Section 207 of the CrPC, Judge Amitabh Rawat said, ."... the court directs that the Investigating Agency shall provide the physical copy of chargesheet and accompanying documents to every accused person by next date, without fail.".Judge Rawat explained, ."Even though, it may be desirable to have soft copies of the chargesheet the law still mandates that a hard copy has to be made available to the accused. The provisions of the IT Act cannot be made applicable or overwrite provisions of Section 207, CrPC as it stands today."Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat.The Court went on to rule, ."Thus, the Investigating Agency is duty bound to supply hard copy of the chargesheet with accompanying documents to the accused. The soft copy is a copy made available for the benefit of the accused/counsel Accordingly, the court also cannot ask for supply of soft copies in the particular manner which is more comfortable of handy to him.".The Judge also reasoned, "There is a proviso (in the CrPC) that if any document is voluminous, then instead of furnishing a copy thereof, the court can direct that he be allowed to inspect it either personally or through pleader in court. This proviso indicates that hard copy has to be supplied as this proviso would not apply to soft copy. Moreover, not every accused would be comfortable with a soft copy and the purpose of supply of copy is to provide the accused with necessary material set against him.".Whereas the State submitted that it required 15 days' time to obtain sanction for funds from the Delhi Government to provide hard copies of the charge sheet for all the accused, Judge Rawat responded,"The Court is not impressed by the submissions made by the Investigating Officers. Once the charge-sheet has been filed by the Investigating Agency, voluminous as it is, then with some alacrity, a copy of it has to be provided in hard copy to every accused which is also the direction of the court. They may require sanction of funds for the said purpose; however, they were supposed to act promptly.".The Court was hearing applications made for a copy of the hard copy by accused Shadab Ahmad, Natasha Narwal, Khalid Saifi, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Tahir Hussain and Ishrat Jahan. Narwal had also sought an OCR searchable digital copy of the chargesheet..The Special Public Prosecutor had raised an objection that all the accused have been given a copy of the chargesheet on a pendrive which is sufficient compliance of Section 207 (Supply to the accused of copy of police report and other documents) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC)..While rejecting the Prosecutor's stance and directing the provision of hard copies to the accused, the Court also directed that the copy be supplied to accused persons Gulfisha and Saleem khan in jail itself. .As far as Tasleem Ahmed, another accused, was concerned, the copy was to be given to his counsel. .On the request of her counsel, the pen drive containing the soft copy of the chargesheet has ordered to be sent to accused, Devangana Kalita in jail. .The Court recorded that the pen drives given to Khalid Saifi, Meeran Hairder, Tahir Hussain, Asif Iqbal Tanha, Shadab Ahmad, Davangana Kalita, Athar Khan and Safoora Zargar had been returned to the Court. "On the next date, all other remaining accused persons, who have not returned the Pen drive, shall submit it to the court", the Court directed. .The matter is expected to be taken up again tomorrow, when the DCP, Special Cell has also been ordered to be present..Read the order: