Taking notice of the "dangerous culture"
of investigating officers copy-pasting witness statements even while filing
charge sheets in serious offences, the Bombay High Court has asked
the Maharashtra government to issue necessary guidelines.
Hearing a petition in a criminal matter, the bench
noted that the statements of witnesses reproduced in the charge sheet were so
similar that even "the paragraphs start with the same words and end with
the same words".
If the police were cutting corners in this way even
in serious cases, it was not a good sign for the criminal justice system, said
Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and Sanjay Deshmukh of the Aurangabad bench in a
recent order. "It is high time to take cognizance of the issue suo motu
(on its own) and to consider, as to what are those shortcomings or difficulties
for the investigating officer/ officers when they record such copy-paste
statements," the court said.
The bench asked the state government to come out
with specific guidelines for police officials as to how a statement should be
recorded. The court was hearing a petition filed by some persons seeking to
quash an FIR registered against them for alleged abetment to the suicide of a
17-year-old youth. After going through the charge sheet, the court noticed that
even in a serious offence, the investigating officer had "literally
copy-pasted" the witnesses' statements. "Even the paragraphs start
with the same words and end with the same words," the HC remarked.
"The culture of copy-paste
statements is dangerous and may, in certain cases unnecessarily, give advantage
to the accused. In such circumstances, the seriousness of a genuine case may
vanish," the bench said. It wondered if the witnesses were even called by
the police for recording a statement.
In the case before it, the high court refused to
grant any relief to the accused, noting that it was a serious offence. The HC
appointed advocate Mukul Kulkarni to assist it, asking him to collect data and
suggest measures which the government may take to prevent such practices and
improve the quality of investigation overall. The bench posted the matter for
further hearing on June 27.