
CHENNAI: THE first bench of the Madras High Court has reserved orders on a question as to whether police is entitled to copies of statements of witnesses, confession statements, identification parade reports and dying declarations, all recorded by magistrates concerned under sec. 164 CrPC.
A bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice PN Prakash reserved orders, after hearing exhaustive arguments advanced by public prosecutor Rajarethinam and advocates Abudukumar Rajarathinam and N Ramesh, on Wednesday.
Originally, the founder-chairman of a school for the deaf and dumb in Tirupur, was arrested on a charge of raping four inmates on May 9 last. He filed an application seeking bail. Sensing that the judge was likely to dismiss the plea, his counsel opted to withdraw the same and accordingly, it was dismissed as withdrawn.
During the course of arguments, Additional Public Prosecutor C Imalias told the judge that police are made to run from pillar to post for getting copies of the statements of witnesses and the accused, dying declaration and test identification parade reports, on account of which, probe gets unduly delayed, resulting in police not being able to file final report within 60/90 days. It ultimately ended with the accused getting released on compulsory/statutory bail under Section 167 CrPC.
Justice Prakash on July 7 last referred the issue to Chief Justice for placing it before a bench for an authoritative pronouncement to settle the controversy and provide guidance to magistrates. The matter was placed before the first bench, headed by Chief Justice and other member being Justice Prakash, which reserved its orders on Wednesday.