Can't print 17.5K pages each for all 15 accused: Police to court
new delhi: Expressing its grievance over the prosecution not providing physical copies of the 17,500-page chargesheet to the accused in the "main conspiracy" case related to the north-east Delhi riots this February due to an apparent lack of funds, a local court here has directed that the state is "duty-bound" to provide the same and ordered that it the direction must be complied with before the next date of hearing.
Written applications were earlier moved by the accused namely, Shadab Ahmad, Natasha Narwal, Khalid Saifi, Asif Iqbal Tanha while oral applications were filed by Tahir Hussain and Ishrat Jahan for the supply of physical copies of the chargesheet and accompanying documents under Section 207 CrPC. However, the Investigating Officer (IO), in his response, submitted that "the sanction for funds for taking out the hard copies for every accused is to be obtained from the Govt. of NCT of Delhi and 15 days' time be provided".
On this, Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat, noted that "the court is not impressed by the submissions made by the Investigating Officer…once the chargesheet has been filed by the Investigating Agency, as voluminous as it is, then with some alacrity, a copy of it has to be provided in hard copy to every accused which was also the direction of the court…they may require the sanction of funds for the said purpose…however they were supposed to act promptly," the order, passed on October 21, read.
Meanwhile, the prosecution opposed the demand made by the counsels of the accused, saying that they had already been provided copies of the chargesheet in Pen Drives under Section 207 of CrPC, which talks of copy and a soft copy in a Pen Drive "is well within the meaning of word "copy" contained in the provision". The prosecution also cited the IT Act to state that "where any law provides for any information in writing or printed format, notwithstanding anything contained in such law, such requirement shall be deemed to be satisfied if it is made available in electronic format".
ASJ Rawat, however, noted that even though it may be desirable to have soft copies of the chargesheet, "the law still mandates that a hard copy is to be made available to the accused. The provisions of the IT Act can't be made applicable or overwrite provisions of Sections 2017 CrPC, as it stands today," the ASJ said while listing the case for Tuesday (today).
