Delhi High Court: In a public interest litigation filed for seeking directions to all District Courts/ Police Stations to supply a copy of the chargesheet/ police report/ final report to the complainant/ victim at free of cost and directions to all the District Courts to issue notice to complainants/victims at the time of taking of cognizance, the Division Bench of Manmohan, ACJ and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora, J.*, opined that there was no mandate in the statute obliging the Criminal Court to issue notice to the complainant/victim at pre-trial stage. The Court further opined that it was unable to accept that petitioner’s suggestion that it should be mandatory for the criminal courts to issue a notice to the complainant/victim at every stage of the pre-trial and trial in criminal proceedings, as such direction was likely to result in avoidable and undesirable delays in trials and was likely to work against the objective of expeditious trials.
Background
In an instant case, the petitioner was a practicing advocate and submitted that the proviso to Section 372 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (‘CrPC’), specifically provided that the victim had the right to participate in the criminal proceedings that were initiated upon his/her complaint, however, there was no such provision for a direction to supply charge-sheet to the victim. The petitioner stated that the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 provided that the copy of the charge-sheet was to be provided to the victim, free of cost, however, there was no such similar provision in CrPC, and such a distinction was violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. Further, it was stated that Jagjeet Singh v. Ashish Mishra, (2002) 9 SCC 321 (‘Jagjeet Singh case’) also recognized the victim’s right to be heard and participate in criminal proceedings.
The petitioner stated that during the proceedings initiated under CrPC, the complainant was not informed about the date and time, when the charge-sheet was filed, thus this Court might issue a direction to all District Courts to ensure that the notice was issued to the victim, informing that the charge-sheet was filed.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court referred to Rules 3, 4 and 5 of the Delhi High Court Rules, Volume IV Chapter 17 (‘the Rules’) and opined that the rules made it clear that a party to a criminal case was entitled to obtain copies of the record of the case upon filing of an application. Further, the Court noted order dated 09-10-2020, issued by Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India (Women Safety Division) for implementation of ‘Standard Operating Procedure for Investigation and Prosecution of Rape against Women’ prepared by Bureau of Police Research and Development pertaining to sexual offences against women and children, wherein the police had been directed to provide a copy of charge-sheet to the victim/informant without any cost. The Court opined that as per the Rules, and order dated 09-10-2020, there was an adequate statutory mechanism in existence for a victim or complainant to obtain copies/certified copies. Thus, the petitioner would be at liberty to approach the Trial Court which passed the order dated 27-09-2023 for modification.
Further, regarding the right of the complainant/victim to be heard at the time of taking cognizance and in pre-trial criminal proceedings, the Court referred to Jagjeet Singh case and opined that if a victim approached the Criminal Court for hearing during cognizance and pre-trial, the said court was bound to hear the victim, however, the said opportunity of hearing was to be granted to the victims who came forward to participate in the criminal proceeding.
The Court opined that there was no mandate in the statute obliging the Criminal Court to issue notice to the complainant/victim at pre-trial stage. The Court further opined that it was unable to accept that petitioner’s suggestion that it should be mandatory for the criminal courts to issue a notice to the complainant/victim at every stage of the pre-trial and trial in criminal proceedings, as such direction was likely to result in avoidable and undesirable delays in trials and was likely to work against the objective of expeditious trials. The Court opined that the petitioner’s suggestion if accepted would act as ‘a treatment worse than the disease’ and thus, in view of the Jagjeet Singh case and the amendments made to the CrPC by the Criminal Procedure Code (Amendment), 2002, there were sufficient rights given to the victim/complainant to effectively participate in pre-trial and trial proceedings if he/she so elected.
[Vivek Kumar Gaurav v. Union of India, 2024 SCC OnLine Del 793, decided on 05-02-2024]
*Judgment authored by- Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Rohit Shukla, Abhay Solanki and Muhammed Shawez, Kamil Khan, Advocates;
For the Respondent: Anurag Ahluwalia, CGSC with Shivam Sachdeva, G.P.
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