It must be first and foremost pointed out before mentioning anything else that the charge sheet refers to a formal police record showing the names of each person who are brought into custody, the nature of the accusations that they are charged with and the identity of the accusers. Charge sheet is the backbone of the criminal justice system as it is only after the filing of the charge sheet that the trial of a criminal case begins and doubtless it is the police who plays the most pivotal part in filing it. It is also known as four-part charging instrument which contains:
- Information about the accused and the witnesses
- The charges and specifications;
- The preferring of charges and their referral to a summary;
- For the trial record.
Needless to say, it must be mentioned here that a charge sheet is definitely distinct from the First Information Report (FIR), which is the core document that describes a crime that has been committed. A charge sheet usually refers to one or more FIRs and charges an individual or organization for some or all of the crimes that are enumerated in those FIR(s). The importance of charge sheet in any criminal trial can be gauged from this irrefutable fact that it is only once the charge sheet has been submitted to a court of law that the prosecution proceedings against the accused commences in the judicial system.
To put it differently, it can be said with consummate ease that a charge sheet is basically a final report that is meticulously prepared by the investigation that is conducted by the police or law enforcement agencies which is imperative for proving the committing of the accusation of a crime by the accused in a criminal court of law. It is a no-brainer that the police report is usually submitted by the police officer after conducting proper investigation which is needed in order to prove that the accused is connected with any offence or has committed any offence that is punishable under any penal statute which has the effect of law in India. It has to be conceded that the report of police encapsulates all the stringent records that are needed by a Judge while judging a case starting right from the commencement of investigation procedure of lodging an FIR and which continues till the final completion of the investigation and till the final report is prepared.
Truth be told, the importance of charge sheet can be gauged from this that it is only on the basis of the charge sheet and other finding of records filed by the police that the Magistrate then frames charge against the accused after scrutinizing it properly and making a thorough pre-inquiry of it in detail to understand and determine the culpability of the accused in the crime and after duly complying with the procedural requirements as entailed in Chapter XVI of CrPC and as postulated in Section 211 of the CrPC. It is only after the filing of the charge sheet/report under Section 204 of the CrPC that the Magistrate then takes cognizance of it. We ought to remember there that under Section 173(2) of the CrPC, the charge sheet/police report is submitted to the Magistrate after completion of the investigation.
To put things in perspective, how ironical it is that usually the charge sheet is to be filed within 60 days from the date of arrest of the accused in cases triable by the lower courts and 90 days in cases triable by Court of Sessions but when it comes to the ground reality, we see as we saw in Lt Col Prasad Shrikanth Purohit's case that the Mumbai ATS which effected the arrest of Col Purohit in November 2008 in most questionable manner did not file charge sheet against him not for just 90 days or 90 weeks but for 9 years and after five years when it handed over the case to the NIA still no charge sheet was filed against him! If the case was so strong against him and he was shown by various news channels that he was the main accused in the Malegaon blast case in which about 7 Muslims were killed and many injured even though very initially even the UN agencies had attributed Pakistan based Lashkar terror outfit behind it then why no charge sheet was framed against him for 9 long years? Why judiciary did not fire the police department for not filing the charge sheet in such a sensitive case for such a long time?
It must also be asked: Why a serving senior Army Officer of the rank of Lt Colonel who had won so many citations and Army Chief's commendation card for his numerous gallantry actions in various counter insurgency operations in J&K was taken for granted and kept in jail for 9 long years without even charge sheet being filed against him? Why more than 76 serving Army Officers testified in his favour and even Maj Gen GD Bakshi (retd) as also Col RSN Singh (retd) of RAW all spoke hugely in favour of Col Purohit and even wrote cover stories on him lamenting that he was wrongly framed? Why is it that all the courts whether it is the trial court or the High Court or the Supreme Court did not say anything on it? This is what one finds most baffling as we see that even charge sheet is framed against dreaded foreign based terrorists like Pakistan based late Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab among others in time!
Could charges against Col Purohit under MCOCA be sustained? No, the Supreme Court found them not sustainable and Col Purohit got anticipatory bail after his senior counsel Harish Salve pointed out convincingly how he was kept in jail for such a long time and still even after 9 years even charge sheet was not filed against him! All the police officers who don't file the charge sheet in time must be taken to task and be punished most strictly.
Strictly speaking, it is only because nothing happens to the concerned guilty police men in uniform that they take the accused's rights for granted and keeps him/her in jail for many years and yet are not held accountable by either sending them also to jail for 14 years minimum or ordering them to pay a huge compensation to the affected accused person apart from dismissing them from service! It must be said at the risk of repetition that there has to be zero tolerance against all those police men who don't file charge sheet in time and thus make a complete mockery of the personal liberty of the accused person which cannot be ever justified under any circumstances!.
It goes without saying that India is a "democratic country" and not a "police country" where police rules and so they too must be taken to task whenever they dare to do something wrong. They should not be allowed to get away most easily! But it has to be said with utmost anguish that we see police getting away with virtually anything and everything they do and it is only in some cases that they are made to account for what they do!
Even as we hear more and more skeletons tumbling out of the closet in police department in Mumbai with the latest being encounter specialist Pradeep Sharma whom NIA arrested just recently, one is left totally appalled, aghast and ashamed to note that those Mumbai ATS police officers who had a direct role in framing Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit as a terrorist and in torturing him for a very long time are still having a free run! The 24-page handwritten complaint details the various kinds of torture that Col Purohit was subjected to. The shocking 24-page letter written by him to National Human Rights Commission in December 2013 which one can read from the website www.pgurus.com exposes shocking details of how terribly he was tortured for weeks by a Military Intelligence Officer and Maharashtra Police ATS team in October and November 2018 so that he could own up wrongly as being the mastermind behind terror attacks that happened in those times as in Malegaon! What is even more revealing is the finer points that eminent women senior journalist Madhu Kishwar has brought out in her web portal "www.manushi.in" on Lt Col Purohit's ordeal after interviewing Col Purohit's wife Aparna which is bone chilling to say the least!
If what all Col Purohit has written and Madhu Kishwar has revealed is true then one cannot but conclude that there was a big political conspiracy in cahoots with police to portray attack on Malegaon as attack by so called "Hindu Terrorists" and all this happened around virtually the same time when Mumbai 26/11 happened in which initially attempts were made by a section in the media to portray it also as attack by "Hindu Terrorists" but Pakistani terrorists Ajmal Kasab who was caught alive spilled the beans of involvement of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Pakistani handlers which included some from the Pakistani Army also! Col Purohit's case was weakened by this small yet influential section of the media which tried to portray him as a "Hindu Terrorist" who was seeking to make India a "Hindu country" instead of depicting how he was trying to expose the dangerous link of politicians with terrorists and no wonder that 26/11 attack took place just few days after his arrest! When Mumbai ATS and Mumbai police starts running after Army officers only as in case of Lt Col Prasad Shrikanth Purohit among others without any firm evidence and illegally detains them, illegally arrests them, illegally tortures them, illegally tries to implicate them in fake cases, illegally jails them for 9 years without even filing a charge sheet and brazenly ignores the ground reality then such dastardly terror attacks like 26/11 which left more than 200 people dead are bound to happen and that too days after Col Purohit was arrested most wrongly who himself was strongly after terrorists and always lead from the front in many counter insurgency operations! This is the real pinch!
In all fairness, it has to be said that police reforms as suggested by the Apex Court in Prakash Singh & Ors vs Union of India and Ors case in Writ Petition (Civil) 310 of 1996 delivered on 22 September 2006 must be now implemented in letter and spirit without fail without any changes so that far reaching much needed changes are carried out in the police department which is the crying need of the hour also! It is a sad commentary on the existing state of affairs in our country that even after 15 years of this landmark judgment we still see this nowhere being implemented which is most tragic! Supreme Court must also now order a definite time limit within which all such recommendations for police reforms are implemented at the earliest!
By all accounts, the police must always be held accountable for whatever wrong they do and especially in cases of human rights like not filing charge sheet in time due to which the accused as we saw in Lt Col Purohit's case keeps languishing in jail for 9 years without facing any trial and in so many other cases also, foisting false cases on innocent citizens, indulging in custodial torture and not lodging FIR among other crimes! Only then will they work with the sense that they cannot get away after doing anything what they want and will be held strictly liable for any wrong done just like others! This should be the order also otherwise politicians will just use them as mere agents to extort money from people as we saw recently in Maharashtra where Ministers themselves came under cloud for extorting crores of rupees through police officers due to which about 4 officers were dismissed also after the news surfaced in media!
It merits no reiteration that the police must be freed now completely from the control, clutches and cage of the politicians. Also, most significantly, there has to be total zero tolerance for police not filing charge sheet in time and for all the other wrongs it commits and judiciary too must not be just a passive, mute and helpless spectator and should take the police to task whenever it is found wanting in this regard! Only then can our criminal justice system run sincerely, smoothly and systematically as we want! No denying it!
Sanjeev Sirohi, Advocate,
s/o Col BPS Sirohi, A 82, Defence Enclave,
Sardhana Road, Kankerkhera, Meerut – 250001, Uttar Pradesh
