Live Law: Bhopal: Tuesday, March 21,
2017.
A single
judge of Madhya Pradesh High Court has held the provisions under section 91 of
Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C) “is not a substitute” or “an alternate remedy”
for the right under provisions of Right to Information Act that may or may not be
available to the accused.
The court
directed the trial court to exercise its jurisdiction under section 91 of
Cr.P.C. and “call the documents from the police so requested by the
petitioners”.
The
petitioners moved an application under section 91 of Cr.P.C. praying the trial
court to exercise its powers and summon certain documents from the police
concerned to a criminal case registered against them.
The petitioners
approached the High Court after the trial court and the revisional court
rejected their application seeking relief under section 91 of Cr.P.C.
The reason for
the petitioners calling for certain documents was to prove the complainant was
first to assault them and the injuries inflicted on the complainant was in
exercise of their (the petitioners) right of private defence.
While
dismissing the application the trial court asked the petitioners to procure the
documents under Right to Information Act while the revisional court held the
petitioners by doing so were trying to delay the proceedings before the trail
court.
Allowing the
petition, Justice Atul Sreedharan said “the reasoning given by the trial court
for having dismissed the application under section 91 is unsustainable in the eye
of law”.
Adding, “the
provision under section 91 of Cr.P.C is not a substitute or an alternative
remedy for the right under the provisions of Right to Information Act, which
may or may not be available to the accused”, the court said.
The court
observed “asking the accused to exercise his right under Right to Information
Act would, infact, procrastinating the proceedings or defeat the cause of
justice as far as the accused is concerned, whereby the police could delay in
delivering the information to the accused or non-deliver the information at all
as sought for”.
In a word of
advice to the trial court, the court said when the accused files an application
under section 91 of Cr.P.C. at the stage of defence evidence the only thing
“the trial court has to see whether the documents so called for is relevant to the
conduct of the defence of the accused person, however, remote it may be”.
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