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Directive to lower courts on corruption cases

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI DEC. 25. The Delhi High Court has directed the lower courts here dealing with corruption cases to take documentary evidence produced by the accused into account while considering framing of charges against them.

Justice J.D. Kapoor passed the order on a petition by an Income Tax officer who had challenged an order by the Special Judge for CBI cases, Dinesh Dayal, in which the Judge had refused to consider the documentary evidence submitted by him in his defence while framing charges against him in a case of amassing disproportionate assets.

Mr. Dayal had said that the documents would be taken into consideration at the time of trial of the case.

The officer, Bani Singh Chaudhary, is facing trial for allegedly amassing disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs. 12 lakhs.

Counsel for the accused officer, K.B. Andley, submitted that the documents which his client wanted to show to the trial court had also been shown to the investigating officer as well as been produced before the Judge and formed part of the investigation but those documents were not taken into consideration at the stage of framing of the charges against Chaudhary.

But Mr. Dayal directed the petitioner to prove the documents by way of leading evidence in his defence at the stage of trial. Allowing the petition, Justice Kapoor said: "The view taken by the trial court is erroneous. If the documents are in the form of official or public documents, these have to be taken into consideration at the time of consideration of the charges otherwise the petitioner will have to face unnecessary rigours of criminal trial which may linger for years together.

"Whenever documentary evidence, which is unrebuttable, is produced before an investing officer as well as before a trial court, then it becomes the duty of the investigating officer as well as the trial court to take into consideration these documents otherwise the principle of natural justice of giving an opportunity to an accused to explain his or her sources of income would be meaningless," Justice Kapoor observed.

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