Conviction By Conducting One Day Trial: SC Upholds Patna HC Order Directing De Novo Trial In POCSO Case
|The Supreme Court refused to interfere with the order of remand passed by the High Court of Patna in a matter where the Trial Court convicted a POCSO accused by conducting a one day trial.
The Accused filed an appeal challenging the order passed by the Special Judge, Araria in the POCSO Case thereby convicting him of the offences. The High Court ordered for de novo trial as the Trial Court failed to follow the due process of law, flagrant violation of principles of natural justice and blatantly disregarded the mandatory statutory provisions of the Cr.P.C. Aggrieved, the Petitioner/Appellant in the present case filed an SLP/Criminal Appeal before the Apex Court challenging the judgment and order passed by the Patna High Court.
The Bench of Justice Abhay S. Oka and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan directed, “We direct the second respondent and the Prosecutor appointed as above to appear before the Special Court on 15th March 2024 at 10:30 a.m. On 15th March 2024, the Special Court shall fix a date for the recording of evidence and shall also pass an order of issue of summons to the witnesses, if required, and proceed with the trial as indicated above by following the provisions of Chapter XXIV of the Cr.PC in its true letter and spirit.
On the aforesaid date, the Special Court will also grant time of only one week to the second respondent to appoint an Advocate of his choice. On his failure to do so, the learned Advocate, who was already appointed to espouse the cause of the second respondent, will continue to represent the second respondent.”
Senior Advocate Vikas Singh appeared on behalf of the Petitioner/Appellant and Senior Advocate A. Sirajudeenappeared on behalf of the Respondents.
The Accused, by enticing the then eight-year-old victim child, took her to the shop and then to the ‘Bagaan’ where he committed penetrative sexual assault on her, after which he absconded.
The High Court, in its judgment, observed, “In the result, there is no alternative but to hold that the learned trial court has failed to follow due process of law while convicting the accused and imposing him the sentence as indicated in the opening paragraph of this Judgment. Because of flagrant violation of principles of natural justice and blatant disregard to the mandatory statutory provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, the impugned Judgment cannot be sustained. Rather the trial itself is vitiated.
The manner in which the trial was commenced, conducted and concluded by the learned trial court clearly displays and demonstrates glaring abuse of prescribed procedure of conducting the criminal trial and, therefore, there is no alternative but to direct for De-novo trial of the accused from before the stage of framing of the charge as breach of mandatory provisions of law commenced before framing of the charge causing miscarriage of justice.”
The Supreme Court also directed the State Government to provide adequate Police protection to the Appellant, the witnesses in the case, the members of the family of the Appellant and the victim-child which will continue to operate till the disposal of the trial.
Accordingly, the Appeal was disposed of.
Cause Title: Bablu Yadav v. The State of Bihar and Anr.
Appearances:
Appellant: Senior Advocate Vikas Singh, Advocates Deepeika Kalia, Satwik Misra, Gunjan Dogra, Devashree, Keshav Khandelwal, Vasudha Singh, Udita Singh.
Respondents: Senior Advocate A. Sirajudeen, Advocates Revathy Raghavan, Arya Kumar, Divya Singhvi, Manish Kumar