JUDGMENT

CHANDRACHUD, CJI.:— The respondent is arraigned as accused No. 2 in a prosecution instituted by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Court of the learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Delhi. Omitting details which are not necessary for the present purpose, the case of the prosecution is as follows:

2. One Shri Amrit Nahata had produced a film called Kissa Kursi Ka, which portrayed the story of the political doings of the respondent and his mother, Smt. Indira Gandhi, the former Prime Minister of India. The Board of Censors declined to grant a certificate for exhibition of the film whereupon, Shri Nahata filed a writ petition in this Court for a Writ of Mandamus. On October 29, 1975, a direction was given by the Court that the film be screened on November 17 to enable the Judges to see whether the censorship certificate was refused rightly. In order to prevent this Court from exercising its constitutional jurisdiction and with a view to preventing the film from being publicly exhibited, the respondent and his co-accused Shri Vidya Charan Shukla, who was then the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, entered into a conspiracy to take possession of the film and to destroy it. In pursuance of that conspiracy, 13 steel trunks containing 150 spools of the film were brought under special escort from Bombay to Delhi at the behest of Shri Shukla. The consignment reached the New Delhi Railway Station on November 10, 1975. The spools were then loaded in two tempo vehicles belonging to the respondent or to his company, M/s. Maruti Ltd., Gurgaon, of which respondent was the Managing Director. The vehicles, which were driven by Ram Chander and Charan Singh were taken to Gurgaon at the premises of Maruti Limited where, under instructions given by the respondent, the spools were destroyed by setting fire to them some time prior to November 24, 1975. A positive print of the film was lying in the Auditorium of the Ministry at Mahadev Road, New Delhi, which was taken charge of by one Ghose, a Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He loaded it in Shri Shuklas staff car whereupon Shri Shukla himself delivered the print at No. 1, Safdarjang Road, where the respondent and his mother used to live at the relevant time. The SC was informed that it was not possible to screen the film for evaluation by the Judges. And the writ petition filed by Shri Nahata came to an abrupt end upon an affidavit being filed on March 22, 1976, by Ghose that the spools of the film had got mixed up with some other films received by the Government in connection with the International Film Festival.

3. After the emergency was lifted and the present Janata Government came into power, a certain information was received in consequence of which a raid was effected on the Gurgaon premises of the Maruti Limited. The raid yielded incriminating material to show that the 13 boxes which had been received from Bombay at the New Delhi Railway Station contained the spools of the film Kissa Kursi Ka which were burnt and destroyed in the factory premises. R. B. Khedkar, a Security Officer of the Maruti Limited and his assistant, Kanwar Singh Yadav, who was the Security Supervisor of the company, were arrested on the very day of the raid. Yadav made a statement on the following day stating how the film was burnt in the premises of the factory. Yadavs confessional statement was recorded by the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate on June 3 and Khedkars on June 4. They were granted pardon under S. 306 of the Criminal P. C. on July 14, 1977. During the course of investigation, various statements were recorded by the police including those of the two drivers of the tempo vehicles, Ram Chander and Charan Singh a watchman called Om Prakash and several employees of the Store Department of the company.

4. After completion of the investigation, a chargesheet was filed by the C. B. I. in the court of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate citing 138 witnesses for prov