‘Has no idea’: Patna High Court withdraws criminal trials from judge for basing guilt on confession, orders special training

A bench of Justices Bibek Chaudhuri and Chandra Shekhar Jha reprimanded a trial court judge and ordered him to undergo special training.

‘Illegal procedure’

The bench expressed astonishment that a judicial officer in the rank of additional sessions judge does not know that police officers cannot record a confessional statement of the accused while they are in custody.

“The learned trial judge considered this statement as admissible in evidence, marked them as exhibits and based his order of conviction on such confessional statement,” the bench observed.

The order further remarked that the trial judge adopted not only a wrong process but an illegal procedure in convicting the accused persons.

By accepting the inadmissible evidence, the court said, the accused persons were unnecessarily compelled to face a sentence for years, which violates the solidarity provision of Article 21.

The relevant portion of the bench’s order was ordered to be sent to the chief justice for consideration.

Convicted under Section 302

The case pertained to the shooting of a junior engineer in Sheikhpura in January 2017.

According to the prosecution, the victim was allegedly pressured to make false entries in a measurement book related to MNREGA works. When he refused, he was allegedly lured outside an ashram and shot.

The appellants were arrested and, on the conclusion of the trial, were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the offence of murder punishable under Section 302 of the IPC.

Feeling aggrieved by the order of conviction, the convicts approached the high court.

At the outset, the court noted that a senior officer in the rank of SDPO didn’t know that a police officer cannot record any confessional statement of an accused.

The court observed that the written complaint was not based on the victim’s statement; instead, it was the SHO’s written complaint, wherein he recorded what he heard from the victim.

It was remarked that the original dying declaration had not been produced before the court.

“What has been written in the fard beyan was the actual account and reproduction of the dying declaration, which has not been deposed by any of the witnesses on behalf of the prosecution. Thus, in this case, the original dying declaration has not been produced before this Court,” the order read.

Considering the facts of the case, the court allowed the appeals and ordered the accused’s release.

When trial court judge relied on AI case laws

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court took exception to a trial court judge relying on non-existent and fake AI-generated judgments, observing that a decision based on such non-existent and fake alleged judgments is not an error in the decision-making rather a misconduct.

A bench of Justices Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Alok Aradhe made the observation while hearing a special leave petition (SLP) challenging the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s dismissal of a civil revision petition. The High Court had upheld a trial court order that relied on AI-generated case laws.