Trial courts must not restrict cross-examination without proper basis and should follow Apex Court guidelines for evidentiary objections.

ORDER

In this petition, the first accused in the final report laid in Crime No.17 of 2015 of the Excise Enforcement and Anti Narcotic Special Squad, Ernakulam, which has been taken on file by the Additional Sessions Judge-VII, Ernakulam as S.C.No.516 of 2015, has sought for a direction to the said court to recall PW9 and permit the witness to answer the questions put by the cross examiner in the above case.

2. The grievance of the petitioner was that, during trial while PW9 was examined before the court below, the Judge who was recording the evidence intervened and did not permit the counsel for the defence to put certain questions for the reason that, those are irrelevant ones. The deposition of PW9 is appended along with this proceedings as Annexure-A4. The learned counsel has pointed to this Court Page No.15 of the deposition, which is appended to this petition as Annexure 4, wherein, PW9 had admitted his signature in the seizure mahazar marked as Ext.P1 and also in certain other documents marked as Exts.P17 to P23, P24 and P25. According to the learned counsel when PW9 was cross examined the counsel for the defence has put a question based on the signature found in Ext.P1, then the court intervened by stating that the question is an irrelevant one, since, PW9 has admitted his signature in Ext.P1 during examination in chief and therefore questioning him again on the same aspect is unnecessary. The learned counsel has also pointed to this Court that, when a question regarding the signature in scene mahazar in Crime No.689 of 2015 of Ernakulam Town South Police Station was put to PW9 then the court intervened and was reluctant to record the question stating that the document being an extraneous one, totally unrelated to the case in question, permission is required to be sought and since that was not done, the question will not be recorded. According to the learned counsel, the court below intervened the cross examination by stating that the questions put by the learned counsel for the defence are irrelevant ones.

3. The learned counsel has citedBipin Shantilal Panchal v. State of Gujarat [ 2001 KHC 326 ], to invite the attention of this Court to the simplified procedure laid down by the Apex Court to be followed by trial courts during trial. The learned counsel has relied on Paragraphs 14 and 15 of the judgment recorded supra. It is extracted herein below:

“14. When so recast, the practice which can be a better substitute is this: Whenever an objection is raised during evidence taking stage regarding the admissibility of any material or item of oral evidence the Trial Court can make a note of such objection and mark the objected document tentatively as an exhibit in the case (or record the objected part of the oral evidence) subject to such objections to be decided at the last stage in the final judgment. If the court finds at the final stage that the objection so raised is sustainable the Judge or Magistrate can keep such evidence excluded from consideration. In our view there is no illegality in adopting such a course. (However, we make it clear that if the objection relates to deficiency of stamp duty of a document the court has to decide the objection before proceeding further. For all other objections the procedure suggested above can be followed.)

15. The above procedure, if followed, will have two advantages. First is that the time in the Trial Court, during evidence taking stage, would not be wasted on account of raising such objections and the court can continue to examine the witnesses. The witnesses need not wait for long hours, if not days. Second is that the superior court, when the same objection is re-canvassed and reconsidered in appeal or revision against the final judgment of the Trial Court, can determine the correctness of the view taken by the Trial Court regarding that objection, without bothering to remit the case to the Trial Court again for fresh disposal. We may also point out that this measure would not