E-Paper
SC cautions media, police against leaking evidence of crimes on TV debates
The observations from the court came in a judgment passed on Tuesday where four persons accused of committing dacoity at a Bengaluru residence in 1999 were acquitted
NEW DELHI: Taking exception to the evidence in a criminal trial being passed on to media and becoming topics of discussion on television debates, the Supreme Court recently warned both investigating officers and the media that such conduct will amount to dereliction of duty and interfere with the administration of criminal justice.
The observations from the court came in a judgment passed on Tuesday where four persons accused of committing dacoity at a Bengaluru residence in 1999 were acquitted after the court found several “missing links” in the evidence presented by the prosecution. Although the trial court handed over death penalty to the accused, the Karnataka high court commuted the punishment to life sentence.
Noting a very disturbing aspect in the case where the statement of the accused, recorded by the police on a DVD, was leaked and shown in a programme by a private television channel, a bench of justices UU Lalit and PS Narasimha said, “Allowing the said DVD to go into the hands of a private television channel so that it could be played and published in a programme is nothing but dereliction of duty and direct interference in the administration of justice.”
Deprecating such conduct on the part of the TV channel, the bench said, “Any such debate or discussion, touching upon matters which are in the domain of courts, would amount to direct interference in administration of criminal justice.” The court further stated that “the public platform is not a place for such debate or proof of what otherwise is the exclusive domain and function of courts of law”.
Such statement recorded by the police on DVD was in the nature of a confession to a police officer, which has no evidentiary value. Finding it disturbing how the prosecution went about the recording of this evidence, the bench observed, “The investigating machinery could have facilitated the recording of confession by producing them before a magistrate for appropriate action in terms of Section 164 of the [Indian Penal] Code. Any departure from that course is not acceptable and cannot be recognised and taken on record as evidence.”
Originally, there were nine accused in the case who were tried for committing dacoity with murder, punishable under Section 396 of the IPC. The incident took place on October 28, 1999 under the Vijayanagar police station where an elderly woman was killed and her gold ornaments were stolen. One of the accused died during trial, while four others were acquitted by the trial court, which sentenced them accused to death in September 2010.
Later on an appeal, the Karnataka high court did not find sufficient reasons to affirm the death sentence and commuted it to life imprisonment by punishing the accused under a lesser offence of Section 394 IPC for ‘acts of causing hurt while committing robbery’.
The top court, upon analysis of the evidence, found that the arrests occurred on February 1, 2001 (more than 15 months after the incident), and the recoveries of gold ornaments made from the shops, as indicated by the accused was after such a long gap, was “not quite consistent”.
It said, “The missing links in this circumstance are quite crucial and important. We, therefore, do not hold this circumstance to have been fully established and the connection of the appellants with the missing ornaments cannot be said to have been established.”
The apex court further noted another disturbing feature in the trial court order, which relied on a chart produced by the prosecution disclosing the activities of the gang to which the appellants were alleged to belong. “If the prosecution wanted the court to take note of the fact that there were other matters in which the accused were involved, the concerned charge sheets should have been produced on record along with sufficient details, including the judgments or orders of conviction. A mere chart cannot be taken as proof of the involvement of the accused in other crimes, either at the stage of conviction or sentence.”
The SC also deprecated the practice adopted by the prosecution in getting the entire statement of the accused recorded, rather than only that part of the statement which leads to the discovery of facts. “Such kind of statements may have a direct tendency to influence and prejudice the mind of the court. This practice must immediately be stopped. In the present case, the trial court not only extracted the entire statements, but also relied upon them,” noted justice Lalit.
Stating that the prosecution failed to discharge the burden on it to displace the presumption of innocence on the accused, the bench observed, “We grant the benefit of the doubt to the appellants and acquit them of the charges levelled against them. They be set at liberty, unless their custody is required in any other case.”
