Registry should call for soft copies of trial court records as soon as leave granted in appeals: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court recently suggested that its registry should call for the soft copies of trial court records in all criminal appeals that have been admitted, that is, appeals in in which leave has been granted [Mijai Molla and ors vs State of West Bengal]..A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan stated that not doing so for the reason that there are no explicit orders to that affect by the Court, would only lead to delay in the final disposal of such criminal appeals."In our opinion, whenever leave is granted in an appeal challenging the order(s) of conviction or order(s) of acquittal, there has to be a practice of immediately calling for the soft copies of the record of the High Court and the Trial Court; to upload the same on the system; and to provide soft copies thereof to the learned counsel representing the parties," the Court observed..It, therefore, asked the registry to obtain appropriate administrative directions from the Chief Justice of India in this regard."We find that in a large number of appeals unless there is an order of the Court to that effect, the record is not being called for and, therefore, hearing of the appeals get delayed .... it will be appropriate if the Registrar (Judicial) seeks appropriate administrative directions from Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India so that the Registry will call for the soft copies of the record of the High Court and the Trial Court immediately after leave is granted in such cases," the Court ordered..The observations came in a bail hearing in which the Court was forced to adjourn the case in the absence of trial court records. The criminal appeal had been admitted in August 2023.It asked the registry to immediately call for soft copies of the records so the hearing could proceed on the next date, April 3.Advocates Rohit Dutta, Ananya Bannerjee, Anas Tanwir, Rajeshri Nivvratirao Reddy, Shivani Jain, Meenakshi Kalra and Abhijit Sengupta appeared for the accused.Senior Advocate Biswajit Deb and advocates Anando Mukherjee, Shwetank Singh, Anju Thomas, Mantika Haryani and Astha Sharma represented the West Bengal government..In November, the Supreme Court had called for amendments to its rules to allow the production of electronic copies of trial court records in criminal appeals rather than having them produced in physical form. It had stated that the move would facilitate a quicker availability of trial court records with the apex court and would also be more environmental friendly.Recently, the apex court had directed its Registry to refrain from referring to trial courts as 'lower courts' in any communication or reference..[Read Order]