Aspecial court in Mumbai has held that the 59 pages of chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh and others was a complete chargesheet.
A special CBI court on Monday rejected the bail plea of Anil Deshmukh, who is under arrest in connection with a corruption case registered in April 2021.
Special judge SH Gwalani noted that both sides had presented “diametrically opposite views before me in regard to the question whether the documents and statements recorded under Section 161 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) must form part of the police report mentioned under Section 173(2) and if they are not tendered along with the report then whether such report could be termed as a complete report.”
Deshmukh and others had said that filing of such an incomplete report without documents and statements does not satisfy the requirements of Section 167 of the CrPC and, therefore, they are entitled to be released on bail.
On the other hand, Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh has submitted that it is not a requirement of law, that, the report mentioned under Section 173(2) of CrPC is complete only when it is accompanied by other documents and statements of witnesses when the report is filed.
The court held that, according to a Supreme Court ruling, if the report filed before the Court satisfies all the requirements of Section 173 (2), then it is sufficient compliance to file a report. It is not absolutely necessary to file all the documents and the statements of witnesses recorded under Section 161 of CrPC for the purposes of filing of the report under Section 173(2) of CrPC within the stipulated period specified under Section 167 of CrPC.
The court noted that on June 2, the report/chargesheet had been filed by the CBI before the vacation judge of the CBI court. In the report, a list of witnesses and a list of documents had been filed. Thereafter, the judge granted time to the investigating officer, CBI, to submit the documents on or before June 7. Thereafter, on June 8, the registrar, Sessions Department, had submitted the report before the CBI court wherein it is mentioned that “On June 7, at 10.30 am, documents and statements of witnesses with a fresh list were submitted by the investigating officer in the Sessions Department.”
The special judge said, “Admittedly, the report filed on June 2, mentions the names of the parties, nature of information, names of the persons who appeared to be acquainted with the circumstances of the case as mentioned in the index, the offence which appears to have been committed by each of the accused, whether the accused have been arrested, whether they were released on bail etc.. All the necessary information mentioned in Section 173(2) of CrPC is given in the report which is filed before the Court. It, therefore, does not matter that a trunk of documents were subsequently filed in the Registry of the Court.”
The judge thus concluded, “Further investigation in terms of Section 173(8) of CrPC cannot be made a reason to say that the chargesheet filed against the accused persons can be incomplete so as to entitle the applicants/ accused to grant compulsive/statutory/ default bail.”
The judge added, “Right to default bail for non-¬filing the police report within the stipulated period provided under Section 167 of Cr.P.C. is an indefeasible right which flows from Article 21 of the Constitution of India.”
The judge thus concluded, “Not filing of the documents and statements of witnesses along with the report on June 2, does not make that report an incomplete report.”
It was because of this that the court had refused to grant bail to Deshmukh and others. “Since the requisite report under Section 173 of CrPC was filed within time, the right to seek default bail never accrued in favour of the applicants,” said the judge.
