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2021 Supreme(SC) 239

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
S.A. BOBDE, CJI., L. NAGESWARA RAO, S. RAVINDRA BHAT, JJ.
IN RE: TO ISSUE CERTAIN GUIDELINES REGARDING INADEQUACIES AND DEFICIENCIES IN CRIMINAL TRIALS – APPELLANT
VERSUS
THE STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH & ORS. – RESPONDENTS
SUO MOTO WRIT (CRL) NO.(S) 1 of 2017
Decided on : 20-04-2021

Advocates Appeared:
For the parties :Sidharth Luthra,Sr. Adv. (AC) R. Basant, Sr. Adv.(AC) K. Parameshwar, (AC) M.V. Mukunda, A. Karthik, Mehaak Jaggi, Vishnu, A. Sregurupriya, Anandh Kannan N., K.M.Nataraj, LD ASG Vikramjit Banarjee, LD ASG R Balasubramanian , Sr. Adv. Pranay Ranjan , Anmol Chandan, Sachin sharma, Neela Gokhale, B.V. Balaram Das,AOR Raj Bahadur Yadav, K M Natarajan, Ld. ASG Vikramjeet Banerjee, Ld. ASG R Bala, Sr. Adv Pranay Ranjan, Sachin Sharma, Anmol Chandan, B V Balram Das (AOR) Sachin Patil,AOR Rahul Chitnis, Aaditya A. Pande, Geo Joseph, A.D.N. Rao, Guntur Prabhakar, Abhimanyu Tewari, Eliza Bar, Subodh S. Patil, Supriya Patil, Shekhar Raj Sharma, Sanjay Kumar Visen,AOR V. Balachandran, Siddharth Naidu, Abha R. Sharma, Keshav Mohan, R.K. Awasthi, Prashant Kumar, Piyush Vatsa, Ritu Arora, Santosh Kumar - I, P. S. Sudheer, Hemantika Wahi, M. Shoeb Alam, D.S. Parmar,AAG Sunny Choudhary, Rovins F. Verma,Adv Nishant Ramakantrao Katneshwarkar, Pukhrambam Ramesh Kumar, Anupama Ngangom, Karun Sharma, Avijit Mani Tripathi, Shaurya Sahay, P.S. Negi, Aruna Mathur,AOR Avneesh Arputham, M/S. Arputham Aruna And Co, Saurabh Mishra, AAG Gopal Jha, Shreyash Bhardwaj, Shashi Juneja, Satish Pandey, Jatinder Kumar Bhatia, Ashutosh Kumar Sharma, Garima Prashad, Chanchal Kumar Ganguli, Yajur Bhalla, Deepak Samota, Siddharth Srivastava, Shubham Bhalla, Mrs. Anil Katiyar, Sneha Kalita, Bristi Rekha Mahanta, Manisha Ambwani, Ambhoj Kumar Sinha, Abhinav Mukerji, Mrs. Bihu Sharma, Pratishtha Vij, Mukesh K. Giri, Naresh K. Sharma, Shuvodeep Roy, Kabir Shankar Bose, Mukul Kumar, Ashok Mathur, Kunal Chatterji, Maitrayee Banerjee, Pravar Veer Misra, Vishnu Sharma, Mukti Chaudhry, K.V. Jagdishvaran, G. Indira, Aniruddha P. Mayee, Dr. Manish Singhvi,Sr.Adv. Sandeep Kumar Jha, Atul Jha, Sandeep Kumar Jha, K. Enatoli Sema, Amit Kumar Singh, Apratim Animesh Thakur, Prachi Hasija, Uttara Babbar, Manan Bansal, Shweta Mohta, Advocate. P.N. Ravindran, Sr. Adv. T.G. Narayanan Nair, Sibo Sankar Mishra, Niranjan Sahu, U.K. Mishra, Ashok Kumar Singh, Arjun Garg, Rati Tandon, Siddhesh Kotwal, Bansuri Swaraj, Divyansh Tiwari, Ana Upadhyay, Manya Hasija, Nirnimesh Dube, Gaurav Agrawal, M/S. KSN & Co., P. I. Jose, Soumya Chakraborty,Sr.Adv. Sanjai Kumar Pathak, Arvind Kumar Tripathi, Shashi Pathak, Astha Sharma, Nikhil Goel, Naveen Goel, Dushyant Sarna, Vinay Mathew, Anil Nag, Anmol Nag, Arun Singh, Surjendu Sankar Das, Annie Mittal,Adv Mahfooz A. Nazki, Polanki Gowtham, Shaik Mohamad Haneef, T. Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy, Amitabh Sinha, Shrey Sharma, Raghvendra Kumar, Anand Kumar Dubey, Narendra Kumar, Sahil Tagotra, M. Yogesh Kanna, Raja Rajeshwaran S., Aditya Chadha, Uma Prasuna Bachu, Jaspreet Gogia, Mandakini Singh, Karanvir Gogia, Shivangi Singhat, Ashima Mandla, Sharan Thakur, Mahesh Thakur, Siddhartha Thakur, Vipasha Singh,Adv Himanshu Shekhar, Jamnesh Kumar, V.G. Pragasam, S. Prabhu Ramasubramanian, Rachana Srivastava Adv. V.N. Raghupathy, P.H. Parekh, Sr. Adv. Sameer Parekh, Kshatrashal Raj, Tanya Chaudhry, Pratyusha Priyadarshini, Nitika Pandey, M/S. Parekh & Co., Preetika Dwivedi, Jishnu M.L., Priyanka Prakash, Beena Prakash, G. Prakash, Suhaan Mukerji, Adv Vishal Prasad, Nikhil Parikshith, Abhishek Manchanda, Sayandeep Pahari, Adv For PLR Chambers &Co. Tapesh Kumar Singh, Advocates

IMPORTANT POINT
Every judge who presides over a criminal trial, has authority and duty to decide on validity or relevance of questions asked of witnesses. Courts in all criminal trials should, at beginning of trial, i.e. after summoning of accused, and framing of charges, hold a preliminary case management hearing.

Headnote:

Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 – Section 148 – Indian Evdience Act, 1872 – Section 132Constitution of India – Article 21 – Speedy trial – Procedural bottlenecks – During a trial, in terms of Section 132, every witness is bound to answer questions she or he is asked; however, that is subject to the caveat that he or she is entitled to claim silence, if answers incriminate him or her, by virtue of Article 20 (3) of Constitution – Every judge who presides over a criminal trial, has authority and duty to decide on validity or relevance of questions asked of witnesses – Courts in all criminal trials should, at beginning of trial, i.e. after summoning of accused, and framing of charges, hold a preliminary case management hearing – This hearing may take place immediately after framing of charge – In this hearing, court should consider total number of witnesses, and classify them as eyewitness, material witness, formal witness (who would be asked to produce documents, etc) and experts – At that stage, court should consider whether parties are in a position to admit any document (including report of experts, or any document that may be produced by accused, or relied on by her or him) – If so, exercise of admission/denial may be carried out under Section 294, Cr. PC, for which a specific date may be fixed – Schedule of recording of witnesses should then be fixed, by giving consecutive dates – Each date so fixed, should be scheduled for a specific number of witnesses – However, concerned witnesses may be

bound down to appear for 2-3 consecutive dates, in case their depositions are not concluded – Also, in case any witness does not appear, or cannot be examined, court shall indicate a fixed date for such purpose – Recording of deposition of witnesses shall then be taken up, after scheduling exercise is complete – Draft Rules of Criminal Practice, 2021, (which are annexed to present order, and shall be read as part of it) should be hereby finalized in terms of above discussion – All High Courts shall take expeditious steps to incorporate said Draft Rules, 2021 as part of rules governing criminal trials, and ensure that existing rules, notifications, orders and practice directions are suitably modified, and promulgated (wherever necessary through Official Gazette) within 6 months from today – If State Government’s co-operation is necessary in this regard, approval of concerned department or departments, and formal notification of Draft Rules, shall be made within said period of six months. (Paras 14, 17, 18 and 19)

Facts of the case:

Present suo motu proceeding under Article 32 was initiated during the course of hearing of a criminal appeal1. The Court noticed common deficiencies which occur in course of criminal trials and certain practices adopted by trial courts in criminal proceedings as well as in the disposal of criminal cases and causes. These related, amongst others, to the manner in which documents (i.e. list of witnesses, list of exhibits, list of material objects) referred to are presented and exhibited in the judgment, and lack of uniform practices in regard to preparation of injury reports, deposition of witnesses, translation of statements, numbering and nomenclature of witnesses, labelling of material objects, etc. These very often lead to asymmetries and hamper appreciation of evidence, which in turn has a tendency of prolonging proceedings, especially at appellate stages.

Findings of Court:

All High Courts shall take expeditious steps to incorporate the said Draft Rules, 2021 as part of the rules governing criminal trials, and ensure that the existing rules, notifications, orders and practice directions are suitably modified, and promulgated (wherever necessary through the Official Gazette) within 6 months from today. If the state government’s co-operation is necessary in this regard, the approval of the concerned department or departments, and the formal notification of the said Draft Rules, shall be made within the said period of six months.

Result – Suo motu proceeding disposed of with directions.

Judgement Key Points

Certainly. Here are the key points derived from the legal document:

  • The Supreme Court emphasized that every judge presiding over a criminal trial has the authority and duty to decide on the validity or relevance of questions asked of witnesses (!) .
  • All criminal trials should begin with a preliminary case management hearing immediately after framing charges, to consider the total number of witnesses, classify them, and decide on admissibility of documents (!) (!) .
  • Courts should consider whether parties can admit any documents at the preliminary stage, with exercise of admission/denial under specific procedural provisions (!) .
  • The schedule for recording witnesses should be fixed with consecutive dates, and witnesses may be bound down for multiple days if necessary; fixed dates should accommodate non-appearance or inability to examine witnesses (!) (!) .
  • The practice of recording depositions should follow a structured format, with witnesses numbered systematically (PW-1, PW-2, etc.), and depositions divided into paragraphs with clear attribution of date and examination type (!) (!) (!) .
  • Exhibits should be marked systematically (Exhibit P-1, P-2, etc. for prosecution; D-1, D-2, etc. for defense; C-1, C-2, etc. for court), with clear indication of the witness through whom the exhibit was introduced (!) (!) .
  • Material objects shall be marked sequentially (MO-1, MO-2, etc.) (!) .
  • After framing charges, references to accused, witnesses, exhibits, and material objects should be by their assigned numbers rather than names, except during identification or if witnesses are not examined (!) (!) .
  • Statements recorded under Sections 161 and 164 of the Cr.P.C. should be marked by extracting relevant portions, with clear marking to prevent inadmissible parts from entering the record (!) (!) (!) .
  • Only admissible portions of confessional statements should be marked and properly extracted for evidence (!) .
  • Every judgment must contain a preface with party names, a tabular statement, and an appendix listing witnesses and exhibits, along with reasons for decisions, and details of the offense and sentence if applicable (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) .
  • In judgments, references to parties, witnesses, exhibits, and objects should be by their assigned numbers or nomenclature, not solely by names, with numbers in brackets for identification (!) .
  • Judgments should be organized into numbered paragraphs, possibly divided into sections, to ensure clarity (!) .
  • The process for bail applications in non-bailable cases should be expedited, with reasons for delays provided if they occur (!) .
  • The separation of prosecutors from investigators is mandated, with advocates appointed to advise during investigation (!) (!) .
  • Trial proceedings should be conducted expeditiously, with a schedule of consecutive dates fixed after a preliminary hearing, and cases should be prioritized to avoid unnecessary postponements (!) (!) (!) .
  • The trial process should include a formal, detailed record of the investigation, including body sketches, photographs, videos, and scene mahazars, with specific procedures for their preparation and preservation (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) .
  • The supply of documents to the accused should include statements, lists of exhibits, and material objects, with clear identification of those relied upon and not relied upon by the prosecution (!) .
  • The recording of evidence should be in a typed format, with simultaneous translation where necessary, and depositions should be read over in court with copies provided to parties (!) (!) .
  • Witness depositions should be systematically numbered, with clear indication of the examination stages (!) .
  • Exhibits should be systematically marked and referenced with their associated witnesses (!) (!) .
  • After framing charges, references to witnesses and exhibits should be by their assigned numbers, and references to statements under Sections 161 and 164 should be carefully marked to avoid inadmissible material (!) (!) (!) .
  • Judgment writing should follow a structured format, including points for determination, reasons, and separate treatment of each accused if multiple are involved (!) (!) (!) (!) (!) .
  • The rules aim to streamline and standardize procedures to reduce delays, improve clarity, and ensure fair trial practices across jurisdictions (!) (!) (!) .
  • The implementation of the draft rules requires expeditious action by high courts and state authorities, including amendments to existing manuals and notifications within six months (!) (!) .
  • The court appreciates the contributions of legal professionals and amici curiae for their valuable inputs in formulating these guidelines and rules (!) .

Please let me know if you need further elaboration or specific assistance.


ORDER :

1. This suo motu proceeding under Article 32 was initiated during the course of hearing of a criminal appeal1[Crl.A.400/2006 & connected matters]. The Court noticed common deficiencies which occur in the course of criminal trials and certain practices adopted by trial courts in criminal proceedings as well as in the disposal of criminal cases and causes. These related, amongst others, to the manner in which documents (i.e. list of witnesses, list of exhibits, list of material objects) referred to are presented and exhibited in the judgment, and the lack of uniform practices in regard to preparation of injury reports, deposition of witnesses, translation of statements, numbering and nomenclature of witnesses, labeling of material objects, etc. These very often lead to asymmetries and hamper appreciation of evidence, which in turn has a tendency of prolonging proceedings, especially at the appellate stages.

2. The Court had noticed that on these prominent aspects, rules appeared to have been formulated by certain High Courts, whereas many other High Courts have not framed such rules. This has led to a lack of clarity and uniformity in regard to the presentation of trial court proceedings and records, for the purpose of appreciation at the High Court level and eventually, before this court.

3. By an elaborate order dated 30.03.2017, this Court noted various salient aspects and flagged inadequacies in the practices and rules of High Courts by taking a cue from existing rules in some High Courts2[Kerala Criminal Rules of Practice, 1982; Andhra Pradesh Criminal Rules of Practices and Circular Orders, 1990 etc.]. After noticing about 13 issues, the Court felt the desirability of a uniform approach – in description of exhibits, manner and description of recording of statements of witnesses, labeling of material objects, and so on. The Court therefore, issued notice to the Registrar Generals of all High Courts, Chief Secretaries and Administrators of States and Union Territories as well as Advocates General, Additional Advocates Generals and Senior Standing Counsel of all states and Union Territories. By a later order dated 07.11.2017, the Court appointed Mr. Sidharth Luthra and Mr. R. Basanth, Senior Advocates as amici curiae. On 20.02.2018, Mr. K. Parameshwar, learned counsel was also appointed as amicus curiae to assist the senior counsel who were earlier appointed as amici curiae. All concerned State Governments and Union Territories as well as High Courts through their Registrar Generals were called upon to submit their responses along with suggestions.

4. By January 2019, 15 States/Union Territories and 21 High Courts had filed responses before this court. Based upon these responses, the amici curiae evolved a consultation paper, which inter alia contained draft rules. The draft rules were circulated to all parties by a letter dated 18.02.2019. Written responses were invited from stakeholders and a colloquium was convened for this purpose in New Delhi at the India International Centre, on 30.03.2019. The colloquium was attended by representatives of different States/Union Territories and their respective High Courts.

5. After considering the suggestions made during the colloquium, the amici curiae submitted the “Draft Rules of Criminal Practice, 2020” for the consideration of this court. While framing Draft Rules, due care was taken to ensure uniformity and at the same time to recognize the diverse practices among the various state authorities and High Courts in the country. The draft rules are compliant and not in any way repugnant to the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. Many suggestions made as practice directions reflect the mandatory provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.

6. By later orders dated 27.10.2020 and 19.01.2021, the High Courts were once again directed to file their responses to the Draft Rules

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