JUDGMENT :

Kausik Chanda, J.

1. The petitioner is the de-facto complainant/victim in S.T. Case No. 51 of 2018, pending before the learned Additional Sessions Judge, 3rd Court at Alipore under Sections 376 /417/506 of the INDIAN PENAL CODE , 1860.

2. While the evidence before the learned Sessions Judge was going on, the de-facto complainant/victim/petitioner filed an application before the learned Sessions Judge to allow her to submit some documents, including some photographs and hard copies of some WhatsApp messages.

3. In the said application, she alleged that during investigation, she provided the investigating officer with some photographs and WhatsApp messages, but upon receipt of the charge sheet, she found that those documents were not relied upon by the prosecution. She prayed in the said application that she should be permitted to produce the said documents.

4. The prayer of the petitioner was opposed by the accused and the Public Prosecutor as well.

5. By an order dated March 4, 2021, the learned Sessions Judge dismissed the application. The learned Judge observed that if the said application filed by the de-facto complainant is allowed, the same will amount to permit the petitioner to adduce additional evidence, and since the case is at the evidence stage, the filing of such additional evidence is not permissible within the scheme of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (“the Code” for short).

6. The learned advocate for the petitioner submits that it was the duty of the investigating officer to rely upon those documents at the time of filing of the charge sheet since the petitioner during course of investigation made over those documents to the investigating officer. He further submits that the learned Sessions Judge should have allowed the said application filed by the de-facto complainant, inasmuch as in the absence of such documents, a fair trial cannot be conducted.

7. It appears that the petitioner did not raise any objection before the learned Magistrate when the charge sheet was filed in terms of Section 173 of the Code, neither she raised any objection before the learned Sessions Judge before framing of the charge with regard to the investigation or submission of charge sheet.

8. In the aforesaid factual backdrop, the following questions arise for consideration:

a) Whether at the time of trial, can any document, which did not form the part of the charge sheet filed by the investigating officer, be adduced as evidence.

b) Whether a de-facto complainant/victim can circumvent the Public Prosecutor at the time of trial to adduce any document as evidence which has not been relied upon by the prosecution.

9. In my opinion the learned Sessions Judge, in passing the order impugned lost sight of Section 231(1) of the Code, which provides as follows:-

“231. Evidence for prosecution.—(1) On the date so fixed, the Judge shall proceed to take all such evidence as may be produced in support of the prosecution.”

10. The expression “all such evidence” employed in the aforesaid Section is wide enough to allow the learned Sessions Judge to receive any document as evidence for the prosecution in the course of a trial, notwithstanding the fact that in the charge sheet, the investigating agency did not rely upon such document.

11. The identical issue as to whether the documents which are not the part of the charge sheet could be received in evidence for prosecution after the commencement of trial, cropped up in a case