Shyam Narayan Ram vs State of Uttar Pradesh & Anr. etc.

Court

Supreme Court of India

Date

21 October 2024

Case No.

CRIMINAL APPEAL No. 4287/2024

Result

Allowed

Bench

Vikram Nath, Prasanna Bhalachandra Varale

Citation

[2024] 10 S.C.R. 1726 : 2024 INSC 800

Acts & Sections

IPC CrPC

Issue for consideration

Whether the High Court fell in error in remanding the matter to Trial Court and giving liberty to the accused to cross-examine a prosecution witness and allowing the prosecution to lead further evidence in the form of formal witnesses.

Headnote

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 – s.294 – The High Court while allowing the appeal filed by accused persons and remanding the matter back to Trial Court recorded – Accused did not get a fair trial as their counsel had admitted the genuineness of documents filed by the prosecution and had dispensed with its formal proof.

Held: It is not for any error or oversight of defence counsel that they had admitted the genuineness of the police papers by dispensing formal proof of the same, rather the defence had repeatedly confirmed their stand of admitting the genuineness of the documents – As per Section 294(3) of CrPC – where the genuineness of any document is not disputed, such document may be read in evidence in any inquiry, trial or other proceeding under CrPC without proof of the signature of the person to whom it purports to be signed – It is undisputed that the Defence Counsel admitted the genuineness of the documents presented by prosecution – While allowing the appeal Hon’ble Supreme Court differentiated Munna Pandey vs. State of Bihar (2023) SCC OnLine SC 1103, as the issue in the said case was fair trial and not application of Section 294 CrPC – Thus, Hon’ble Supreme Court held, Hon’ble High Court fell in error by remanding matter back to Trial Court for cross-examination of witnesses – Hon’ble Supreme Court does not find any error in the judgment of the Trial Court considering the defence repeatedly continued to admit the genuineness of the prosecution documents exempting them from formal proof – Appeals allowed, impugned judgment and order of the High Court is set aside and the criminal appeals before the High Court are restored, to be heard and decided afresh on merits on the basis of material on record.

Judgment Vikram Nath, J. 1. Leave granted. 2. By means of these appeals, the informant-appellant has assailed the correctness of the judgment and order dated 01.11.2023 passed by the Allahabad High Court in Criminal Appeal Nos.4982/2019, 5346/2019 and 5347/2019 whereby the High Court allowed the appeals, set aside the order of conviction passed by the Trial Court dated 15/16th July, 2019 and had remanded the matter to the Trial Court to decide the same afresh and that the matter be retried from the stage of testimony of PW 2 onwards. Further a direction was issued that the authors of the ex

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