Judgment Intelligence
Petition AllowedChotha Ram & Anr. v. State of Rajasthan
2024:RJ-JD:14887
S.B. Criminal Misc(Pet.) No. 3672/2023
- Court
- Rajasthan High Court
- Date of Decision
- 4 March 2024
- Bench
- Justice Farjand Ali
- Relevant Acts & Sections
- Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 — Sections 91, 233, 311, 313, 391, 482; Indian Evidence Act, 1872 — Sections 65-B, 165; Constitution of India — Article 21; Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 — Sections 8, 18, 29
Final Outcome
Petition allowed; the 17.05.2023 order is set aside and the application allowed. The trial court must direct the State, the officers and service providers to furnish the call details and tower locations, have the police procure them promptly, and keep them on record with a Section 65-B certificate (paras 20-22).
Key holdings
- The prosecution must prove the place and time of apprehension; the accused need not disprove them (paras 8-9).
- Saving call data from deletion is not taking defence evidence prematurely (paras 12-13).
- Sections 91 and 311 CrPC let the Court call evidence essential for a just decision at any stage of the trial (para 17).
- The records go on file with a Section 65-B certificate, for use by both sides while examining witnesses (para 22).
- Confronting the officers with the records is a cross-check of prosecution evidence, not defence evidence (para 22).
Case explainer by NyayVidhan: an account of this judgment and the law it laid down, not the court's text. The judgment itself is the authoritative version.
Brief Facts
The petitioners, charge-sheeted under Sections 8/18 and 8/29 of the NDPS Act, face trial before the Special Judge, NDPS Cases, Pratapgarh (paras 1-2). They allege a false case: the arrest and seizure memos were not prepared at the time recorded, the police officers named in the seizure memo were not at the spot, and the papers were prepared at the police station at a different time (para 3). They applied under Sections 91 and 311 CrPC and Section 165 of the Evidence Act to summon the call details and tower locations of those officers' mobile phones for 16.05.2022 and 17.05.2022 (paras 1, 4). The trial court rejected it on 17.05.2023, and they petitioned under Section 482 CrPC (para 1).
Court's Findings
Defending oneself is a statutory and fundamental right, and under Article 21, as explained in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, procedure must be fair, just and reasonable (paras 6-7). The prosecution must prove that the accused were caught at a particular place and time; the accused bear no burden to disprove it, and that stage had not yet come (paras 8-9). Defence evidence is normally taken only at the Section 233 CrPC stage, after the Section 313 examination (para 12). But call data is deleted after one year under the rules of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, so the Court has a duty to save it for use at the appropriate stage; ordering its preservation is not taking defence evidence prematurely (paras 12-13). If the officers' records match the seizure memo, they support the prosecution; if not, they dent its story. So there is no legal impediment to summoning them early to save them from deletion (para 15). Read together, Sections 91 and 311 CrPC let the Court call any evidence essential for a just decision at any stage of the trial (para 17).
Legal Principle
Where an accused says the arrest and seizure did not happen as recorded, the trial court may, under Sections 91 and 311 CrPC, summon and preserve the police officers' call data records and tower locations before the defence stage. Preservation is not taking defence evidence; the material is considered only at its proper stage (paras 12-13, 15-17).
Precedents Relied Upon
- Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India AIR 1978 SC 597
Relied on for the principle that the procedure established by law under Article 21 must be fair, just and reasonable, not arbitrary, oppressive or unreasonable, after stating that defending oneself is a statutory and fundamental right (para 6).