Iqbal Ahmed Ansari, J.

1. Article 21 guarantees fair trial. A fair trial is impossible if there is no fair investigation. In order to be a fair investigation, the investigation must be conducted thoroughly, without bias or prejudice, without any ulterior motive and every fact, surfacing during the course of investigation, which may have a bearing on the outcome of the investigation and, eventually, on the trial, must be recorded contemporaneously by the Investigating Officer at the time of investigation. A manipulated investigation or an investigation, which is motivated, cannot lead to a fair trial. Necessary, therefore, it is that the Courts are vigilant, for, it is as much the duty of the Court commencing from the level of the Judicial Magistrate to ensure that an investigation conducted is proper and fair as it is the duty of the Investigating Officer to ensure that an investigation conducted is proper and fair. A fair investigation would include a complete investigation. A complete investigation would mean an investigation, which looks into all aspects of an accusation, be it in favour of the accused or against him.

2. Article 21, undoubtedly, vests in every accused the right to demand a fair trial. This right, which is fundamental in nature, casts a corresponding duty, on the part of the State, to ensure a fair trial. If the State is to ensure a fair trial, it must ensure a fair investigation. Logically extended, this would mean that every victim of offence has the right to demand a fair trial meaning thereby that he or she has the right to demand that the State discharges its Constitutional obligation to conduct a fair investigation so that the investigation culminates into fair trial. The State has, therefore, the duty to ensure that every investigation, conducted by its chosen agency, is not motivated, reckless and that the Investigating Officer acts in due obedience to law. It is only when the State ensures that the investigation is fair, can it (the State) be able to say, when questioned, that the trial conducted was a fair trial. Article 21, therefore, does not vest in only an accused the right to demand fair trial, but it also vests an equally important right, fundamental in nature, in the victim, to demand a fair trial. Article 21 does not, thus, confer fundamental right on the accused alone, but it also confers, on the victim of an offence, the right, fundamental in nature, to demand fair trial.

3. The alleged violation of the above-stated principles is at the heart of the controversy in the present appeal, wherein the Appellant is the unfortunate son, whose parents were put to death at the time, when the Appellant was barely 5/6 years old and claims to have helplessly witnessed his parents being killed.

BACKGROUND FACTS

4. Claiming to have completed investigation, the police submitted the police report under Section173(2) Code of Criminal Procedure, the learned Magistrate, who received the report, commonly called charge-sheet, did not issue any notice to informant as to whether he had any comment to offer on the charge-sheet, which named only one person, i.e. the Respondent herein, as accused. The informant, thus, received no notice and the present Appellant, being a child, had no idea as to what was happening. The woman, whose son was killed, i.e., the grand mother of the present Appellant, was said to be a witness to the acts of the killing of her son and the daughter-in-law; but she is no longer alive. Two other persons, who are claimed to be eye witnesses to the alleged acts of killing of the parents of the Appellant, were, according to the Appellant, not, initially, examined deliberately by the investigating officer and, on protests being raised, the statements of the said two eye-witnesses were recorded in the presence of the Superintendent of Police of the district concerned; but, for no assigned reasons, they were not cited by the police, as witnesses, in the charge-sheet, though these witnesses had