Jatiram Halder and Others vs The State

Sen, J.—This Rule was obtained by Petitioners who were convicted for having committed dacoity and sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment for a period of four years. The accused were tried by the Assistant.Sessions Judge. They appealed to the Sessions Judge against the order of conviction and sentence and the appeal was summarily dismissed. Next they applied to this Court and obtained a Rule. The main ground urged by the Petitioners before us is that they were wrongfully deprived of the opportunity of looking into the police diary in which the statements of witnesses in the case were recorded. It is contended on behalf of the Petitioners that the accused have a right to get copies of the diary containing such statements, and that they have been prejudiced by the denial of such right. In our opinion, this contention must be upheld.

In the course of the investigation, the investigating officer recorded the statements of witnesses, but in doing so, he disobeyed the clear provisions of sec. 161 (3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. That section lays down that when a police officer records any statement made to him in the course of examination under that section, he shall make a separate record of the statement of each person whose statement he records. In order to deprive the accused of their right of testing the truth of the prosecution story by contradicting the witnesses examined in the case by their statements made to the police officer during the investigation this investigating officer disobeyed the law, and recorded the statements of all the witnesses in a lump, as it were. This method of recording statements has now come to be described as boiled statements. The law prohibits such boiled statements. The law also allows an accused person to see the boiled statements in order that he may ascertain whether these boiled statements may be of use to him in contradicting the witnesses examined in Court.

The accused prayed before the learned Assistant Sessions judge for copies of these boiled statements, but the learned Judge refused the prayer stating that as the statements were boiled statements, and the public prosecutor objected to the prayer, he could not grant it. We thus see that the accused, if we may say so, were doubly hampered:--First, they were hampered by the investigating officer adopting a device unwarranted by law; and secondly, they were hampered by an illegal order passed by the Assistant Sessions Judge refusing them the right to inspect the boiled statements. In this state of affairs, we must hold that the orders of conviction and sentence are bad, and we accordingly set them aside, and direct a retrial of the Petitioners by such Judge as the Sessions Judge may appoint in this behalf. At the trial, the Petitioners shall be given copies of the boiled statements recorded by the investigating officer. This Rule is made absolute

Chunder, J.

I agree.