Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has taken a serious view of the "dangerous culture" of investigating officers copy-pasting witness statements even while filing charge sheets in serious offences. The Aurangabad bench of the HC has directed the Maharashtra government to issue necessary guidelines to prevent such a practice.
The bench took note of the issue while hearing a petition seeking quashing of an FIR in a case of abetment to suicide of a minor. It noticed that the statements of witnesses reproduced in the charge sheet were so similar that even “the paragraphs start with the same words and end with the same words”.
A bench of Justices Vibha Kankanwadi and Sanjay Deshmukh of the Aurangabad bench remarked that if the police were cutting corners in this way even in serious cases, it was not a good sign for the criminal justice system.
“It is high time to take cognizance of the issue suo motu (on its own) and to consider, as to what are those shortcomings or difficulties for the investigating officer/ officers when they record such copy-paste statements,” the court said.
The judges have asked the State government to come out with specific guidelines for police officials as to how a statement should be recorded.
The court was hearing a petition filed by five persons seeking to quash an FIR registered against them for alleged abetment to the suicide of a 17-year-old youth.
The HC, after going through the chargesheet, noticed that even in a serious offence, the investigating officer had "literally copy-pasted" the witnesses' statements. “Even the paragraphs start with the same words and end with the same words,” the HC remarked.
Flagging the issue, the HC said: “The culture of copy-paste statements is dangerous and may, in certain cases unnecessarily, give advantage to the accused. In such circumstances, the seriousness of a genuine case may vanish.” It wondered if the witnesses were even called by the police for recording a statement.
The HC refused to quash the FIR against the accused saying that it was a “very serious matter”.
It appointed advocate Mukul Kulkarni to assist it, asking him to “collect data and suggest measures to be taken by the State Government to avoid such situations of copy-paste and to overall improve the quality of investigation”. The HC has scheduled the matter for further hearing on June 27.
