The accused's right to a fair trial necessitates the provision of original form evidence, including electronic recordings, as per Section 207 of CrPC.

Order :

ANAND SHARMA, J.

1. By way of filing the instant criminal misc. petition, petitioner has assailed the legality, validity and propriety of the order dated 30.01.2024 passed by Special Judge, CBI No.4, Jaipur Metropolitan-I, Jaipur, and has prayed for a direction against CBI to provide exact clone copies of memory cards labelled as VR, VR- 1 & MC in different memory cards as it was recorded and provide transcription of whole recordings recorded in the above memory cards.

2. Facts in brief are that pursuant to FIR lodged against the petitioner under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, petitioner is facing trial before the Court of Special Judge CBI No. 4, Jaipur Metropolitan-I.

3. At the time of filing of charge-sheet in the aforesaid case, a copy of charge-sheet and documents was provided to the petitioner and accordingly, trial proceeded further after framing of charges.

4. The petitioner has come out with a case that while filing charge-sheet, the prosecution agency-CBI has not provided copy of the documents in the exact form, in which it was relied upon by the CBI for the purpose of proving the alleged recordings of incidents regarding trial. Although, it has been admitted by the petitioner that one CD containing the recording has been provided to the accused petitioner, yet such CD (Compact Disc) is an incomplete document and cannot be said to be clone copy of original Micro SD cards/Memory Chip Cards.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner has indicated that during the course of examination of witnesses in the aforesaid trial, the prosecution produced PW-16-Amitosh Kumar, who happens to be Senior Scientific Officer, Grade-I (Physics), CFSL, New Delhi. As per learned counsel for the petitioner aforesaid witness PW-16 appeared as an expert so as to prove the Data recorded in electronic form by the prosecution agency.

6. Learned counsel for the petitioner would submit that aforesaid witness PW-16 was put to cross examination by learned counsel for the accused petitioner. During cross examination, the witness has stated that Voice Recording can be examined by two different methods i.e. Auditor analysis and Spectrografic examination. The witness has further stated that although, he had submitted one report Ex.17, yet he was not in a position to verify as to the recording has been done through DVR or through mobile. Witness PW-16 further stated that the DVR through which voice recording was done on 26.12.2017 and 28.12.2017 was never sent by the CBI to him for the purpose of examination.

7. Learned counsel also points out that the witness PW-16 has also stated that the transcription sent to the witness does not exactly match with the recording and has further stated that copy of the recording made by him is not clone copy of the same.

8. Learned counsel would submit that as the statements given by the expert allegedly revealed that the CD provided by the prosecution agency-CBI along with charge-sheet containing electronic data with regard to voice recording is not clone copy of memory card used for the purpose of voice recording and the witness has also given uncertain statements with regard to the fact as to whether transcription furnished to the accused represents correct audio recorded or not? Hence, under these circumstances, application under Section 207 of Cr.P.C. was filed on behalf of the accused-petitioner with a request to direct the CBI to provide clone copies of the memory cards used for audio recording.

9. The request made by the accused-petitioner was