Chargesheet can’t be put in public domain: Supreme Court
New Delhi, January 20
Holding that a chargesheet filed by an investigating agency was not a public document, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a PIL seeking a direction to all states to enable free public access to chargesheets and final reports filed by investigation agencies on their websites.
Not a public document
If chargesheets are put in public domain, it will be contrary to the scheme of the CrPC and it may violate the rights of the accused as well as the victim and/or even the investigation agency. Justice MR Shah-led Bench
“If the relief as prayed in the present petition is allowed and all the chargesheets and relevant documents produced along with the chargesheets are put in the public domain or on the websites of the state governments, it will be contrary to the scheme of the Criminal Procedure Code and it may as such violate the rights of the accused as well as the victim and/or even the investigation agency,” a Bench led by Justice MR Shah said.
“Therefore, the chargesheet/ documents along with the chargesheet cannot be said to be public documents under Section 74 of the Evidence Act, reliance placed upon Sections 74 amp; 76 of the Evidence Act is absolutely misplaced,” the Bench said, dismissing a PIL filed by one Saurav Das.
Relying on the verdict in Youth Bar Association of India’s case — in which the top court had directed copies of FIRs to be published within 24 hours of their registration on the police websites or on the websites of state governments ndash; the petitioner had demanded that chargesheets too should be made public.
Das had sought chargesheets to be made public under Section 4(2) of the Right to Information Act which cast a duty upon the public officer/public authority to provide as much information suo motu to the public at regular intervals through various means of communication and to provide as much information as mentioned in Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act.
“Putting the FIR on the website cannot be equated with putting the chargesheets along with the relevant documents in the public domain and on the websites of the state governments,” said the Bench, which also included Justice C T Ravikumar.
