4 years after accused died, lawyer’s request to prove innocence in court denied

A rural magistrate court in Ahmedabad last week rejected a peculiar request from the lawyer of an accused in a criminal trial involving a former secretary of the Bar Council of Gujarat. Four years after the death of the accused, the lawyer urged that the trial against his client should continue so that his innocence could be proved. However, the court took the prosecutor’s arguments into account and ruled on March 30 that the deceased be abated – or removed — from the trial and the trial may proceed against the second accused.

In 2004, AD Vyas, the then secretary of the Bar Council of Gujarat, and Sanjay Panchal, the accountant of the council, were booked under IPC sections 408 (criminal breach of trust), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 114 (abettor present( and 477A (falsification of accounts) for allegedly siphoning off around Rs 33.82 lakh from Bar Council of Gujarat’s accounts between 1998 and 2004. They were accused of not depositing the funds paid by lawyers as welfare fund.

During the criminal trial, which is ongoing before the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Nilesh Pathar, Vyas died in April 2020. He was due to be removed from the trial,
However, his lawyer moved an application urging them to allow to prove Vyas’s innocence in the matter.

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The trial is currently at the stage of witness examinations. Ravinath Thaker, the special public prosecutor in the case, however, argued that the request could not be allowed under any provisions of the CrPC or IPC.

It was also argued that if not abated from the trial, Vyas will not be in a position to complete the stage of further statements in the trial and additionally, an exemption application is required to be given by the accused, which too would not be possible.