Legal significance of Charge sheet and Supplementary Charge sheet I Informative Podcast I Must Watch

Hello ladies and gentlemen. Good evening, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are. I am S. Paul Singh, former IG Police and ex-Chief of Rapid Action Force, Government of India. I am with you today evening in my capacity as President of NISSMAT. NISSMAT, National Institute of Security, Safety, Management and Applied Technology, was established in 1990. It started training courses in the field of private security, safety as well as management and technology. Today it has become a think tank organization, and the discussions and deliberations with scholars are propagated through webinars, interactive sessions and protocols. Thousands of people, viewers, see these deliberations on their respective screens.

Introducing the speakers first. This evening we have a brilliant and an eminent scholar, a legal luminary, to discuss on the subject of legal significance of charge sheet and supplementary charge sheet. Let me introduce Mr. Gill to you. Shri Karan Gill is an advocate practicing in Punjab and Haryana High Court. He has the experience and background of working as a special public prosecutor with the National Investigating Agency of Government of India. He has also eminently handled cases under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. He plays a pivotal role in the cases relating to terrorism and organized crime. He is also the standing counsel for a number of regulatory bodies. He has represented cases involving arbitration and resolution of dispute. He is an adviser also with a number of educational institutions.

With these words, let me introduce briefly the subject, legal significance of charge sheet and supplementary charge sheet. Briefly, as per section 173(1) of the CRPC, now it will come section 193(1) of the BNS code, the police must complete the investigation without unnecessary delay. In cases where the accused is in custody, the charge sheet must be filed within 60 days for offenses which are punishable with less than 10 years, or 90 days for offenses punishable with death, life imprisonment or imprisonment of 10 years or more.

Now there are always reasons for delay in submission of charge sheets in the courts invariably. The reasons for delay in filing the charges in the court of law can be briefly indicated by me. First of all, the investigating officers often face challenges in gathering admissible and sufficient evidence so as to finalize their investigation and submit the charges. Then many a times the witnesses are unavailable or are reluctant to cooperate with the investigator. Then sometime the forensic cases, like cyber crime cases or cases of financial fraud, require detailed and technical analysis, thereby requiring prolonged time for investigation. Then the coordination with multiple agencies sometimes, and the jurisdiction of various agencies, also causes delays. Accused sometime are found to be absconding, which needs some time for us to alert the other states or even up to Interpol. Therefore again the submission of charge sheet is delayed.

The legal scrutiny of the evidence, this is very important factor. The legal scrutiny of the evidence as gathered and as indicated by the investigating officer in his report is often seen and vetted by senior officers or prosecutor, and which is again a time consuming process. Then sometime there's emergence of new leads, new evidence, which defy the deadline laid down by us. Such delays, while not desirable of course, are often unavoidable, and I have indicated the reasons. These are about submission of charge sheet.

Now I'll give a few words on the supplementary charge sheet. Why supplementary charge sheet is required? Sometime new evidence emerges after the initial charge sheet; new evidence or suspects may emerge, requiring supplementary investigation and the submission of a supplementary charge sheet. Sometime in the law itself some legal amendments may take place, and the framework of law or judicial interpretation may necessitate supplementary charge sheet. Sometime people file public interest litigation in cases; while public interest litigation is involved, the courts are required to get some additional investigation done on some cases. So that also requires scrutiny and supplementary charge sheet. Periodic reassessment of cases also sometime required to be done on the basis of strength of additional evidence which may come forward to us and may prompt reassessment of the initial charge sheet. So submission of supplementary charge sheet may require.

In summary, the filing of charge sheet is a very meticulous process, influenced by legal, influenced by procedural, influenced by evidentiary value, and sometime certain logistical factors, as a number of time the supplementary charge sheet or the initial charge sheet is delayed. Now before I request the learned speaker to talk on the subject, I also like to submit to him that while covering the subject he may also like to dilate as to what is failure to file the charge sheet, what it entitles to the accused as a default bail, under section 167(2) of the CRPC or 187(2) of the BNS code. Then how does the media trial sometime delay the submission of a charge sheet? How does delay in filing charges affect the right of the accused for a speedy trial? And can extended pre-trial detention be considered a form of punishment without conviction? These are some of the questions that come to my mind. I'm sure our learned speaker Mr. Gill will dilate upon it. I now request Shri Gill to please take over.

Thank you so much, sir, and thank you for the kind words. Basically, going with your experience, you have touched each and every part of the entire topic, whatever you are telling me to explain or to deliberate upon. Basically you have touched in short everything, so the duty is cast on me to explain now. So I'll definitely try to explain in the layman language, what I believe the audience will not be legally qualified. Majority of them, they will not be legally qualified and they might not understand the legal terms or something. I'll try to make it very, very easy to understand. I'll try that.

First of all, sir, basically in India we'll talk about the concept, why the charge sheet is there. Basically, once an offense is committed, police as per law is bound to register the FIR, and FIR signifies the first information report. So technically a person with a deviant mind or with some ulterior motive, he may or may not approach the police with the sincerity. He may try to put someone in a dock. So what the law says, it says that you straight away go to the police and police is going to register the FIR. Once that thing is registered, the whole criminal procedure is set into motion. So in case a person is innocent, he'll be in trouble, his liberties will be gone. Whatever is guaranteed under article 21, that will be hit. For this very specific purpose, the provision of a charge sheet, it comes handy as a very important procedural component of criminal law.

Because the police, once the action is set in motion, the entire police, they start investigating the thing. So they will bring out the truth or the untruth of the entire story, and as you had worked on so important post, so you might have come across so many instances where the people with the mala fide intention, they try to settle the scores with someone. So going with that, police is given a time frame so that they may investigate the entire narrative of the complainant, gather the relevant evidence, and to see whether the evidence collected by them will stand the scrutiny of law or not. And in case something is hidden, they may also try to extract that. The truth will be extracted by the police during the investigation.

Once the police, they complete the entire process of investigation, the law requires them to file a final report, and technically the final report is what we call as the charge sheet. It is a sum total of the circumstances which clearly, very clearly lays down the name of the accused persons, that is after the process is complete, the investigation is complete. So now police can conclusively say with authority that as per our investigation so and so things have been found out. So the number one will be the names of the accused, because in the initial complaint the complainant may have added 10 people with no act attributable to them, but just to put a pressure on that fellow they might have gone ahead by implicating him wrongly. So police will sift out that, and suppose if there are 10 persons who have been accused, so maybe the charge sheet will not come against all; maybe it comes against five, because there will be substantial evidence against them. So the basic component of the charge sheet will be the name of the accused persons which police believes they have committed that offense.

Then the nature of offenses. The complainant in the initial stage might have said so many things which could not stand the judicial scrutiny. So those sections, those offenses might have been scored out because that is not backed by the concrete evidence. So the third will be the list of witnesses; that is the most important. I may accuse anyone of anything, but I need to substantialize through the witnesses who have witnessed that. So either they are the direct witnesses or the circumstantial witnesses, that is a separate part, but police is competent enough to sift this thing. Even the circumstantial evidence is very much available to all the complainant so that he may depend on that. Like a person, there is a marital discord between the parties, the husband, he indulges in the physical violence. So that crime is taking place or has taken place or has occurred behind the closed doors.

Yes.

So there can be no witness. There can be no direct witness in that scenario. So the police comes into, when they go into the investigation, they start the investigation, they go through the entire process, they see whether there is no evidence. The parents are not going to support the story. They will definitely try to save their son. So in that scenario the circumstantial evidence will come very handy. I mean, if someone has seen the lady with the bruises or something, or someone might have heard a screaming noise or a screaming of the lady or something. So this will be covered under the charge sheet. The evidence will be there. Then the statements under section 161 will be there.

Yeah. Oh, they are not signed. They are not on oath. They are not signed by the witnesses. But definitely this is the first point when the evidence of those witnesses have been recorded. So there is very less chances of these people trying to unsettle the things; that is the freshest thing in their mind at that point of time, at the stage of 161. So charge sheet contains this, then the documentary evidence, like a MLR or something. I mean, a person might have suffered some injuries or something. So he might have gone to the police hospital, civil hospital, he got his medical legal examination done. So that also forms part. If there is a dying declaration, police stumbles upon that or finds out from the person who has hidden it, so that will also part of it, and that will be documentary evidence.

And after this thing there will be an opinion of the investigating officer, that these are the evidences, these are the things, these are the circumstances which we have found out during our investigation. So in my mind, I am filing the charge sheet against these people; these people need to be tried. So in short, in nutshell, I'll just explain what will be the components of the charge sheet. Charge sheet will consist of name of the accused persons, the nature of offenses under which section they are going to be prosecuted, list of witnesses, their statements under 161, then the documentary evidence if any, and definitely the opinion.

And circumstantial evidence.

Correct, that is part of the documentary, I mean yes, very correct. It is along with the documentary evidence, the circumstantial evidence if any, and the opinion based on these all circumstances and all the things. So that thing goes to the court now. So basically the moment the investigating officer goes to the court and files the report there, the final report, so the court takes the cognizance of it. So the chapter of the police, the action of the police and the powers of the police comes to an end — not virtually, but because there is another topic to be touched. If we take it at the face value, yes, they will complete, they will conclude the evidence. They say that they have got nothing more to add. So they file it within the stipulated time, as you have rightly pointed out, 60 days and or 90 days, and in the case of UAPA it is 180 days. So during that period they go to the court and file the final report, whatever they have with them. So at that moment the court is to take the cognizance of that. So if they find it discrepant, they will return it.

One minute, one second, just please clarify, because people invariably think that when final report is submitted after investigation, it means they have given a final report that we are not able to have evidence, and the final report is there, but charge sheet itself is a final report.

It is a final report.

Itself is a final report. So please clarify, because invariably whenever I meet people, when the final report is there, that over, they are not able to substantiate the charge and therefore they submit the final report. I said no, final report is in the form also, charge sheet is a type of final report.

Yes, it is a final, basically it is a final report but not exactly in the literal meaning. The literal meaning will not be there, but yes, for 90% cases it will be the final thing. Police will have nothing more to add, and yes, there will be star cases, there will be very sensitive cases in which the police may stumble upon some new evidence. A new witness comes to the police and says that you have already completed the investigation in this matter, but I am a witness to this. Why I was not called, and I was holding, I was in possession of say some video recording or some audio recording or something like this. So in those circumstances the police is not precluded from using that evidence. Yes, the provision of CRPC, the criminal law, is very clear on this point that under those circumstances police can file a supplementary charge sheet.

Correct.

They can reopen the case, they can reopen the investigation. Whatever is left, whatever new things have come into a picture, now they are bound to investigate that, and after collecting the evidence, after recording the evidences of those people and putting on record those evidences which were previously left out inadvertently, they can file it in the court before the magistrate. But here the difference will be, here the investigating officer is required under law to directly hand it over to the magistrate, not to the court. That is the difference between both now, because charge sheet was not to be filed with the magistrate. It was to be filed with the court within 60 and 90 days. So from court it goes to the magistrate. But here in the case of supplementary charge sheet, the law provides that the entire supplementary charge sheet will be placed before the magistrate. But here in this case the magistrate may take cognizance of that or not.

Previously, whatever charge sheet was brought, after the due deliberations on that he accepts that and takes the cognizance, and the trial starts. So from there on police has got nothing to do. So the trial will commence with whatever evidence is contained in the charge sheet. Basically it is a compendium of everything, whatever is to be brought against the accused, because there are the rights of the accused also; they cannot be left to uncertainty. At least after filing of the final report, that is the charge sheet, the accused knows for sure these are the offenses which are attributed to me. These are the witnesses who are going to come against me. These are the evidences which will come. So he'll have proper time and opportunity to prepare his defense, because he is presumed to be innocent unless proved guilty under the normal law.

But yes, under UAPA it is upside down. Here he will have to prove his innocence. So we are not going to touch that. But here in this case, once the trial starts with whatever components, that is the final report given by the investigating officer, the trial starts henceforth on everything. So at that moment the accused will have all the rights enshrined under article 21.

I see.

So he will be given the proper opportunity to defend himself, to bring his own witnesses. I mean, the court is going to give him each and every opportunity as provided under the criminal law so that he can rebut whatever has been brought against him, because there are chances that due to some extraneous factors or a human error — human error is always there.

Right. Right.

In those circumstances a person who is innocent, he cannot be punished. Just to safeguard his interest, the law has provided an elaborate system.

I'd like to intervene. Could you please clarify, when the supplementary charge sheet is filed, it, as you indicated, will not go to the court but it goes directly. Then at that point of time, when the supplementary charge sheet is filed, is it the competence of the concerned magistrate to reject the supplementary charge sheet, or what objections invariably are generally raised by the accused party to that supplementary charge sheet? This point may be clarified please.

Yes. So this is very important thing that you have pointed out, because the law provides that after the supplementary charge sheet is handed over to the magistrate, he is to either accept or to reject that. In principle he will accept that, and yes, in case the police was just trying to fill up the lacunas or trying to trump up something so as to save the previous investigation, so in those circumstances the court will not be very kind to the police. Because the latest case on this I can refer is, everyone might have heard about the thrashing of the some army major in Amritsar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it was because of X reasons. We are not going to discuss what reasons prompted that action or whatever, but yes, the police has been trying to fill up the lacunas because their own personnel are involved in that. So definitely, apparently they are trying to save them. The evidence is being sifted to this extent. Once a charge sheet is filed, a supplementary charge sheet has been filed in the court stating that these non-available sections are removed.

Oh.

Only one round, the evidence is there. A broken ribs, a broken limbs of the complainant are there. Everything is on record, and you are removing those very sections so as to soften the impact. So the honorable high court was very harsh on this. He took an exception to this, that you are always permitted under law to bring the supplementary charge sheet, but not to this extent; a material is there already on file. And it is revolting for anyone who is legally qualified to see that broken bones, everything is there. Let them stand the trial, and you are coming filing a supplementary charge sheet saying that nothing has happened and these very sections are removed.

That means you are compromising your own evidence in a way.

Yes. Yes. Yes. And very rightly so, at the pulling of the honorable high court the things have come straight now. So the directions have been passed. So these things are there in which the magistrate is bound to react. But yes, if there is something which was left out, they must be given all the chances to bring that, because a person who has committed an offense, he should not go unpunished. That is for sure. But you cannot create or manufacture evidence to put him in the dock. That is the only thing. And that is the safeguard granted by our criminal law, both ways, I think, either to lessen the punishment or to make it a more sort of a lenient sort of thing, or maybe to make it even stricter. I mean, if it goes in contradiction to the initial evidence brought on record, the court has a right either to reject.

Or higher court, and higher court, because in this case the higher court rejected totally and reprimanded it, as to why the police is trying to get into, when the evidence is already there. There are broken rib etc. How do you want to compromise that offense? Quite right, sir. Go ahead, sir.

So basically in these circumstances, rightly so, even in case there has been some lapse by the magistrate, he fails to note down that an important piece of evidence is being left out, or the sections have been omitted now despite having a documentary evidence or the clear circumstantial evidence to that effect. In those circumstances also, I mean if the case is not highlighted or there is no media trial, in those circumstances, the complainant is not remedyless. Let them do even by error. If the supplementary charge sheet has removed some sections, it won't mean that the accused will straight away walk free. The evidence will come. Whatever 161 is there, that will come, whatever is there.

While, sir, you have mentioned a word about media trial, I like to hear, itself intervene and submit to you. How does the media trial, as we call, so much things coming in the media etc., how does it affect either, I would say, the criminal or the police? I mean, it will demoralize the police to some extent, and maintainers of law and order will become problem. It may also, the other way around, that the criminal may not be a criminal, yet the media trial proves him the criminal. Can you dilate upon the media trial, how does it affect and delays the total delivery of justice?

That is a wonderful thing you have pointed out; that is the need of the day. What I personally believe, we live in a society, we live under the same circumstances as everyone else. So it is a human nature. Whatever you see constantly gets stamped on your memory, whether it is right or wrong, whatever is happening nowadays on the WhatsApp, because nowadays the universities are hardly functioning. It is the WhatsApp university that is functional nowadays. Because it has the immediate effect on your memory, because whatever you see, whatever you are being told, without verifying that you start believing that. You start believing that, yes, journalism is, or the journalists are, the fourth pillars of democracy. You still believe that; we all believe that; we were made to believe that since our childhood.

Yes.

So in those circumstances, because in journalism the journalists, they have to bring a story which people will like to read, which they will be interested. Who is interested to see what chief minister does, what is his daily routine? No one is interested. But if you bring something shocking, everyone will just get up and start noticing the thing. This is what the media do. A crime happens. Before police steps in, before poor police even start the investigation, the trial has already started on the newspapers, in the news channels, and 24 by 7. They will hunt the witnesses who are never the witnesses. They will hunt down everything to the minutest thing, as if they are like the legendary Sherlock Holmes. They do everything under the sun just to make their channel work, just to increase the TRP, and that hampers, because they motivate the general public in the positive way or the negative way. So in case it is in the negative way, people will get up, little realizing that nothing of that sort has happened. They will literally take whatever the news articles say. They will gather and they will harrow the police station, or they will just sit and sweat on the roads.

And we call it as a mob justice.

Correct. Correct.

This public protest, and this public sort of protest encouraged, and encouraged ultimately the mob violence also. So we sometimes call it, such trials in the media, they encourage a mob justice in fact rather than criminal justice.

Is it justice? That is the question. You don't know anything about the subject, you don't know the circumstances, what has happened. Suddenly something comes in on the WhatsApp, you spring into action, start torching the vehicles on the road without realizing what has happened. Let the police take time to complete their investigation. Let the witnesses be there. Let's see what has happened. See what has happened now in the latest Malegaon case; it was in the newspapers two to three days back.

Yes sir.

Just because of the media trial at that time.

Yes sir.

Certain things have happened, and those people were behind the bars for say 15 years or 20 years. Now finally, after sifting the entire evidence, court come to the conclusion that none of them is involved. Prior to that there was a blast cases and everything; nothing came out of it. When the witnesses are not there, when there is nothing to corroborate that, the media trial puts undue pressure on the police to complete the investigation. They might take say six months or eight months or one year, because if the terror angle is there, the wires will be across the borders, or you don't know from which part of the continent the wires are there.

Yes.

So if those are so apparent at the face of it, I mean that is unimaginable that the crime to that extent has been committed by these people, because they will definitely do such a thing in a decoy manner so that they are not discovered, and the media tells us that something has happened and police is not acting. So poor police, what are they going to do now in the limited time? Then there will be a pressure from media.

Again very interesting, you know, these questions have fueled some meaningful discussions with you on the need for some judicial reforms or investigative accountability, whatever it is, either it was investigative failure or whatever, investigative accountability or some judicial reform, because this sort of thing, you know, they create a very, very poor impression not only about the legal system of our country but also very badly effects on the image of the police working for this. And these excessive delays create a sense of, sometime, a scope for political or even sometime monetary manipulation in certain cases.

Correct. Very.

Therefore, very meaningful words you have used, that without knowing certain thing the mob takes the child into his own hands, or the media takes the child into. Go ahead. A very meaningful discussion; we're very happy to learn from you, sir.

And there is another angle to this, sir. I will not say the police is not well trained; they are all well trained, they have undergone all the drills and everything. But getting the proper drills, following the proper SOPs laid down, does not guarantee a very fair investigation.

Yes sir.

That is a different altogether, a different ballgame.

Yes sir.

And either we are suffering from this malice in the system, because the governments, they have failed to rectify this glaring defect. It is very easy to come and say that police has not done something well. How can all the people be acquitted? The question arises, no, they could not have been if police would have done a better job. I say, how could the police have done the better job when the media trial is already going on? There is a pressure from all the quarters to complete the investigation in a limited time, and the chief minister comes, he says that in X days the investigation will be completed. How on earth are you going to do it? That means that politician knows who has done it. It's very easy for him to say, but going to the ground zero with no evidence around, you start searching for the shells, you start searching for something, and you start connecting. Is it not? It's not a child's play. You need lot of dedication, lot of hard work and time for that. Here I will not say 100%, yes, there are few percentage of people who are not well equipped in the modern sciences.

Yes sir.

So they are put on the job of investigation. Yes. There is a shortage of trained manpower. That is very apparent, because I have seen police working from very close quarters, and definitely not to the extent you have seen, but yes, to some extent.

You have worked with the NIA. You have worked with the... I like to probe into one more point: the prolonged investigation as it is. I mean unnecessary prolonged investigation, I use the word. No doubt such prolonged investigation erode public confidence in the police at times. But keeping in view the points indicated by you and the thoroughness required in investigation, and also in cases where the terrorist crime is involved, where most of them are not here in this country or abroad, obviously there can be delays. Now the question is, there has to be some method whereby you are able to have a balance of the two. I know that it erodes the confidence of the public as such in the police, because such prolonged investigation, they say they're doing it for purpose, so that there can be, as you say, some people are not well equipped, they are not good investigator, they may be doing that. But at the same time, the points which you have indicated for submission of charge sheet, where I have also indicated a lot of problems in the process of investigation as such, there is sometime a genuine delay also; a genuine delay always, it cannot be attributed because of the police intentions to delay it. So therefore my submission is that, what you suggest, I mean both the sides, how can it be balanced so that it does not delay in delivery of justice but also does not encourage such public protests to media trials etc.? Have you got any suggestion, sir?

Yes. Yes sir. This is very interesting. The answer is very crisp. The police needs to be well equipped with the modern technologies, which they are not.

Yes sir.

We are not abreast to the latest ways of investigation, what is happening in US, what is happening in Canada and other developed countries. We don't have access to that kind of expertise. Yes, we are reading everything, but as you will concur with me, our studies, our course materials, I'm sorry to say, they are so outdated and obsolete things. We learn by, it is known as rote learning, what we do; our books are never equipped. The whole system needs to have a change, a positive change. Unless we are abreast to the latest developments, our police are not trained in that, how can we expect them to be conducting a fair investigation over that? Even if they do a proper investigation, putting on paper, getting the evidence is not their piece of cake. They need to be, because these people, they may be very good investigators, they might be, but legally speaking they will not be as well versed as some lawyer or legally qualified person will be. What is going to stand in the court? What is not going to stand in the court? That poor man does not know. He worked hard and hard and he found out the evidence, but he brought that evidence which is inadmissible in law. Take the near file. He's right, because court is bound to go by what the law says, or it will be very easy for us to start blaming the police that the entire investigation was botched or it was because of some ulterior motives. You cannot attribute this thing every time. It is our police personnel who are working in the investigating field, they are not equipped. Yes, now the things have changing now, like we have the NIA, and these are the specialized forces, they are fully trained. I'm talking about the general police.

Yes sir.

So these people also need to be trained.

Yes sir.

And plus, in the police station, this is my suggestion, a post of a public prosecutor or someone who is going to assist the police in the nitty-gritties of the legality, he should be there before the preparation of the charge sheet, because the final report should be prepared in accordance with law. Here what happens, the charge sheet is prepared in a hurry. Whatever investigation is there, legally they are not able to comprehend that, and whatever material they bring before the court, it goes in the dust bin then, because the defense counsel is going to point out those lacunas only. These are basically, being working in the criminal field, what our mind is trained, we see the lacunas. We just read the thing and we see the lacunas there. So how come? Because we are trained in the criminal jurisprudence. We understand these things should not have been there. Merely by a glance, we know these are the lacunas on which the accused will get acquitted. And the poor man who is investigating the entire thing, working day night, that fellow doesn't know; honestly he has put up the charges, and which doesn't stand the judicial scrutiny.

So we are wasting the resources, the vast resources we are wasting. Instead, at the very inception, if we have a legal person in a police station, apart from the police, you need to put, maybe he's in the police services only, but his qualification needs to be a trained lawyer.

Sir.

It is not so that you simply keep a post for a lawyer; a youngster comes, he gets the job of a police officer, that's the end of it. He will be even worse than the others. So you need to have a system in place where you'll say that a person who has already worked for 5 years in the court in the criminal side.

Very good.

Right. So that person should be, after thorough examination of that person, he should be appointed. So in that scenario, I assure you sir, there will be almost 95 to 100% convictions in that scenario.

In my last 33 years I have seen all things, these things only. I started with the court martials; this is how I came into it. It was by incident I started criminal practice. So all the criminal things we saw at so close quarter. So the moment you see a paper, you see a report by the police, you know here you have to hit. So if that lacuna can be covered up or plugged, I mean our investigation is always in the right earnest. We cannot find faults. Usually it is the quality of the witnesses, quality of the evidence which suffers.

And over that, there is one more thing which I like to add, with your permission.

Yes.

What happens in the court, once the whole thing, rightly or wrongly, whatever prepared, goes to the court, after that police has got nothing to do with it. Now you have got the public prosecutor there.

Yes sir.

One poor public prosecutor in the court having 40 to 50 trials in a day. Over that, we have seen those circumstances where a single prosecutor is expected to watch the interest of the state in three courts. Oh Baba, is he a human or a superman?

The volume of work, the volume.

What happens in that scenario, it is God who saves or not saves. So he will have no time to explain the circumstances to the witness, the proper, even to the prosecutors, I'll come to that, the sensitive ones. He will have no time to explain, because there are 10 cases lined up in which the court is telling him to complete. So he will hop from one case to the other. He will not explain the things. He will expect that the person, prosecutor X, knows everything.

Go ahead. Right.

Oh, the moment he will just catch hold of that witness, he will just, in verbatim, whatever is written in the charge sheet or in 161, he will just repeat that.

Right.

Right. Without asking, without asking the lady, he will not ask. This is what is actually happening in the courts. He will not ask; whatever is written, in verbatim he repeats that. After that he moves out. He moves out to the other case in the other court, or he will take up some other file. So the poor lady or the poor witness is at the mercy of the lawyers like us who are trained in this.

Right.

So we will shred them, because there is no one to protect that witness in the court. We will be asking so many leading questions, so many things, we will confuse, because we are trained for all this.

Correct. Right.

So we will ask so many double-ended questions the witness is not able to comprehend, because she or he has not been cautioned against that. We will put the entire narrative of ours into his. Tomorrow, during the arguments, we'll say, look, the eyewitness says he was not there.

Yes.

And oh, that poor man has never said so. I know that he has never said so. So, sir, your question is very genuine and on the dot, but the things need to be sorted out at the end of investigation, preparation of the charge sheets, and definitely in the courts. Even if you get a foolproof case, with the help of a lawyer the police creates a foolproof case, it goes to the court; if this is the scenario where the public prosecutor is not there to help you out, so we people, if we come as the defense lawyers, we will shred that person.

Correct.

So then the media trial starts. Previously it was a media trial that the police is not catching the culprits. Then after 20 years they have got another angle of the story. How come everyone has been acquitted by the court? Then the question starts coming on the courts, entire investigation agencies and everything. So this thing is not so difficult to comprehend or to rectify, but the will needs to be there somehow, political will, which should come, and overall the entire system, that should be there. So if it happens, I think our conviction rates will be as high as they have in US. Hardly their case fails in the trial, because they do it so thoroughly. Because I am doing at the moment also, I've got exposure in some foreign laws also; law is so beautiful. It takes no time, and the exact thing, whatever the police creates or the investigation or the charge sheet is there, that stands proved in the court. So that is the problem, sir.

Anything else you like to say on this subject?

I say that we are the best democracy in the world, where our founders of our constitution or the laws, they have ensured that everything, each and every aspect what we see today, they foresaw at that period. They have taken care of everything. The law is so beautifully done. But the problem comes in the implementation. That is only to be rectified. That's all. There is nothing else we need to do about the law.

Thank you very much. I like to sum up by saying these things, that Gill has elaborately discussed from not only the theoretical angle or practical aspects of not only the charge sheet, submission of charges and supplementary charges, but also how we lose either getting conviction or implicate some innocent people. He has clearly indicated there's a lack of proper knowledge or proper training on the part of our police prosecutors, or they're overburdened at times; most of the time they are overburdened, they have to deal with a number of cases, it's very, very difficult for them to do so, and still they are carrying on. The judicial justice itself actually has a basic deterrent effect in any society; police may be having, but judicial justice has a total deterrent effect. And actually the law, as indicated by Mr. Gill, our law is beautiful, our constitution is beautiful, but somehow or the other we people, either in the police or even in our public prosecutors, are not well trained to get the delivery of justice in the manner it is required to be done. He has elaborately discussed on the requirement of charge sheet, supplementary charge sheet, and also the various intricacies involved in this. We are thankful to Mr. Gill for having elaborately discussed all these things and made our viewers a little more knowledgeable than they were perhaps. Thank you very much, Mr. Gill.

Thank you so much, sir.

Bye-bye. God bless you.