SC order: against public scrutiny of charge sheet before commencement of trial

• The highest court of India reached the almost last frontier of transparency in its agreeing to the live telecast of some of its hearings.

Recent developments:

• The Chief Justice of India’s (CJI) said ,that Supreme Court of India judgments will now be translated in four languages (Hindi, Gujarati, Odia and Tamil) is another step towards making judicial processes more accessible.
• Against this backdrop, a Supreme Court pronouncement on charge sheets appears to be retrograde.
• Court ruled that a charge sheet filed against an accused in a criminal case is not a ‘public document’ within the Right to Information Act 2005 or the Indian Evidence Act.
  • Therefore, the demand to upload charge sheet on a public website as soon as it is filed in court was untenable..

Contradicting an earlier order

• The judgment seems to contradict an order passed by the Court where, in Youth Bar Association of India vs Union of India (2016).
  • It directed that the First Information Report (FIR) in any case should be on the relevant investigating agency’s website within 24 hours of its registration.
• But in the Court’s view now, the charge sheet (i.e., Final Report under CRPc) is different from the FIR, and hence cannot be shared with anyone other than the accused and the victim.

Times have changed

• Previous Status
  • Courts earlier were a sacrosanct institution, where none of their actions was open to criticism or any kind of scrutiny.
  • The slightest criticism of judicial decisions stood a fair chance of inviting contempt and punishment.
• Current Status
  • Now judges are often criticised in the media for their judicial decisions that are unconventional and not in line with popular expectations.

A lost chance

• Some investigations are malicious and prejudiced due to extraneous considerations.
• A trial court will actually benefit from outsider scrutiny of the prosecution case if a charge sheet is made available to the lay public.
• The Supreme Court’s order is a wake-up call to all investigating agencies, including the Central Bureau of Investigation, which have often been assailed by courts for delays in filing a charge sheet or for the poor quality of investigation.

Conclusion

• Court scrutiny is a good feature in India’s criminal justice system that reasonably ensures that false prosecution of an innocent individual is only an aberration and not a rule.
• A chance for well-meaning members of the public to study a charge sheet, at least in important cases before a trial begins, will only ensure that prospects of loosely framed charge sheets will be fewer in number.