Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – s.311 – Power under – Exercise of – Appellant filed complaint that the accused-ex-employees of his company had stolen company data and used it to manufacture equipment, which was manufactured by his company – Evidence of the appellant was recorded before the CFSL Report came – Though, the CFSL expert in his examination described the data found on the hard disk(s) of the accused but there was no reference as to the comparison of the two sets of data – Application filed by appellant u/s.311, rejected – Legality:
Held: Discretionary power like s.311 is to enable the Court to keep the record straight and to clear any ambiguity regarding the evidence, whilst also ensuring no prejudice is caused to anyone – It should be invoked when it is essential for the just decision of the case – On facts, the request for recall of the appellant u/s.311 was justified, as at the relevant point of time in his initial deposition, there was no occasion for him to bring the relevant facts relating to similarity of data before the Court, which arose after the CFSL expert was examined – Orders of the Courts below set aside – Application of the appellant u/s.311 for his recall to be further examined as a witness allowed. [Paras 10-12, 14]
LIST OF CITATIONS AND OTHER REFERENCES
Ratanlal v. Prahlad Jat (2017) 9 SCC 340 : [2017] 8 SCR 682; Manju Devi v. State of Rajasthan (2019) 6 SCC 203 : [2019] 6 SCR 68; Swapan Kumar Chatterjee v. Central Bureau of Investigation, (2019) 14 SCC 328 : [2019] 3 SCR 713; Harendra Rai v State of Bihar 2023 SCC OnLine SC 1023 – relied on.
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As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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