Point of Law: Furnishing of documents to accused under Section 207 Cr.P.C. is a facet of right of accused to a fair trial enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India and it is duty of Magistrate to pass appropriate orders providing such documents.

JUDGMENT :

RAJESH SINGH CHAUHAN, J.

1. Heard Sri. Rajiva Dubey, learned counsel for the petitioners and Sri. Ran Vijay Singh, learned Additional Government Advocate for the State.

2. In view of the proposed order, the notice to opposite party No. 3 is hereby dispensed with.

3. By means of this petition, the petitioners have prayed for the following relief:

“Wherefore, it is most respectfully prayed in the interest of justice that this Hon'ble Court may kindly be pleased to allow this petition under Section 482 Cr.P.C. and quash the impugned order dated 06.10.2021 passed by the learned III Additional Sessions Judge, District-Lakhimpur Kheri in Sessions Trial No. 181 of 2020, Crime No. 853 of 2020, under Section 302 I.P.C. Police Station-Kotwali Sadar, District-Lakhimpur Kheri and also issue direction commanding the learned Trial Court to immediately supply to the petitioners the extract of the C.D. of the footage of C.C.T.V. Camera produced by the information, which is part of charge-sheet.

The petitioners have further prayed for stay the criminal proceedings pending against the petitioners before the learned Trial Court i.e. learned III Additional Sessions Judge, District-Lakhimpur Kheri in Sessions Trial No. 181 of 2020, Crime No. 853 of 2020, under Section 302 I.P.C. Police Station-Kotwali Sadar, District-Lakhimpur Kheri.”

4. At the very outset, learned counsel for the petitioners has drawn attention of this Court towards Annexure No. 2 of the petition, which is an application dated 16.10.2021 filed before the learned trial court for getting the Compact Disk (C.D.) which has been made part of the case diary with the request that for submitting the defence by the petitioners such C.D. would be relevant and required in the interest of justice.

5. The attention has also been drawn towards Section 207 Cr.P.C. which clearly provides about supply to the accused of copy of police report and other documents. The exception to Section 207 Cr.P.C. is that if the documents demanded is voluminous in nature, instead of providing such documents the accused person may be permitted to peruse such documents or to inspect either personally or through Pleader of the Court.

6. While disposing of the aforesaid application vide order dated 06.10.2021 (Annexure No. 1), the learned court below rejected such application giving reference of the judgment of Hon'ble Apex Court rendered Shafi Mohammad vs. State of Himachal Pradesh, (2018) Cri. L.J. 1714 indicating therein the portion of that judgment which deals with the provisions of Section 65-B (4) of the Indian Evidence Act.

7. Sri. Dubey has submitted that in the application of the petitioners (Annexure No. 2) the specific prayer for supply of C.D. was made in terms of provisions of Section 207 Cr.P.C. assigning the reason as to why such C.D. would be necessary and required for the petitioners but while disposing of such application learned court below has not dealt with such provisions of law and the provision so indicated in such order while rejecting the application was not relevant in the present case.

8. So as to strengthen the aforesaid arguments, Sri. Dubey has drawn attention of this Court towards the judgment of Hon'ble Apex Court rendered P. Gopalkrishnan alias Dileep vs. State of Kerala and Another, (2020) 9 SCC 161 whereby the Hon'ble Apex Court has held that furnishing of documents to accused under Section 207 Cr.P.C. is a facet of right of accused to a fair trial enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India and it is duty of Magistrate to pass appropriate orders providing such documents. Some relevant portion of Para-10 of the judgment is being reproduced herein-below:

“10. Be that as it may, the prosecution was obviously relying on the contents of the memory card which have been copied on the pen-drive by the State FSL during the analysis thereof and has been so adverted to in the police report. The contents of the memory card, which are replicated in the pen-drive created by the State FS