1. The 8th accused, aggrieved by the rejection of his application Crl.M.P.No.49/2018 in C.P.No.16/2017 of the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Angamaly, for a direction to furnish a cloned copy of the contents and the transcript of a memory card produced by the prosecution, has approached this Court.

2. The crux of the prosecution case, as is available from the records, is as follows: The 8th accused is well known and popular cine artist. The defacto complainant (victim) is also a well known actress in Malayalam film industry. It is alleged that the petitioner herein maintained enmity towards the defacto complainant, believing her to be responsible for the break down of his matrimonial relationship. To retaliate, he allegedly conspired with the first accused to abduct the victim, to sexually abuse her, to record the acts of sexual abuse and to black mail her using the video graphed materials. In prosecution of the above conspiracy, the first accused allegedly solicited the assistance of accused Nos. 2 to 6 and on 17/2/2017, while the victim was proceeding in a car along the National Highway, she was intercepted by accused Nos. 1 to 6. They abducted her to Ernakulam and on the way she was sexually abused inside the vehicle and the acts of sexual violence involving the first accused and the victim were video graphed by the first accused on his mobile phone. The victim was abandoned thereafter. The data in the mobile phone was allegedly transferred by the first accused to a memory card. In the meanwhile, the incident was reported by the victim to the Nedumbassery police, who registered Crime No.297/2017 and investigation commenced. On getting information about the registration of the crime, the first accused entrusted the memory card to CW44, who later produced it before the Judicial Magistrate.

3. After investigation, final report was laid against accused Nos. 1 to 7 on 17/4/2017 for offences punishable under sections 120(b), 201, 212, 342, 366, 375(D), 506(1) r/w 34 IPC and sections 66 B and 67A of the IT Act.

4. It is stated that, the investigation into the larger conspiracy was continued by the police. The petitioner herein was arrested in the course of investigation, on a specific allegation that he had masterminded the entire crime and had hatched the criminal conspiracy with accused No.1, who accomplished it with the aid of accused Nos. 2 to 6. Investigation claimed to have unearthed materials to link 8th accused with the first accused. Final report was laid by the prosecution against accused 8 to 12 also on 22/11/2017 for offences under sections 120A, 120B, 342, 354, 354B, 366, 376D, 506(i), 201, 212 and 34 IPC and sections 66E and Section 67A of the IT Act. However, the mobile phone, which was used for recording the sexual abuse, could not be recovered in the course of investigation.

5. Pursuant to the filing of the final report, cognizance was taken and committal proceedings commenced as CP No.16/2017 of the Judicial First Class Magistrate. Pursuant to the summons, accused appeared and they were furnished with the records relied on by the prosecution. The petitioner herein raised an objection that, the memory card relied on by the prosecution was a crucial document, but a copy of it was not furnished to him. He accordingly filed CMP No. 49/2018 for a direction to the prosecution to hand over to him a cloned copy of the video footage of the memory card and the transcript of human voice. In the meanwhile, the petitioner was permitted to watch the video footage in the presence of his counsel and Magistrate on 15/12/2017. The above application was filed thereafter. It was stated in the CMP that he needed a thorough examination of the contents of the memory card. He sought a direction to the prosecution to furnish a cloned copy of the contents of memory card containing the video and audio contents in the same format, as obtained in the memory card and the transcript of human voices, both male and female recorded in it.

6.