NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on October 11 a plea which has raised the issue of safety at trial courts across the country and said production of undertrial prisoners before the court should not be ordered as a "matter of routine" on every date.
According to the cause list uploaded on the apex court website, the petition will come up for hearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit on Tuesday.
The petition, filed by advocate Rishi Malhotra, said even if the trial court deems fit the physical presence of an undertrial prisoner before it, the same can be ordered through video conference from jails, especially in cases of gangsters, so public safety and security of judicial officers remain unaffected and the rights of accused are balanced.
"The fulcrum of the instant public interest litigation is to prevent the various trial courts across India to not to insist on the presence of undertrials on each and every date as a matter of routine practice thereby not only endangering the safety of public as well as judicial officers but also facilitating the opportunity of hardcore prisoners from escaping from the custody of the police," it said.
The plea has referred to several incidents in trial courts, including the September firing incident inside a district court in Delhi last year when three people including a jailed gangster were killed.
"Apart from this, there have been various instances all across the trial courts in India where during the normal usual course of appearances before the trial court by an undertrial, either the public safety has been put in danger or the said undertrial has fled from the custody of the police," it said.
The petition, while referring to various provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), said they provide powers to the court concerned to dispense with the personal appearance of undertrial prisoners who are brought from jails during normal trial proceedings.
It said section 267 of the CrPC, which deals with the power of the trial court to require the attendance of a prisoner from jail, gives discretion to the trial judge to order the attendance of a prisoner from the prison.
"What is happening all over India before the trial courts is that as a matter of routine the undertrials are produced from jails to the concerned trial courts on each and every date which not only leads to unnecessary expenses on the state exchequer but also, more importantly, endangering the public safety and also the safety of the concerned undertrial," it said.
The plea said it cannot be disputed that an undertrial prisoner has a constitutional right to be present before the court when the trial against him is in progress.
"However, the said right is not an absolute right and is rather qualified by various provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure," it said.