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Synopsis

The Allahabad High Court recently imposed a cost of Rs 20,000 on a petitioner for multiple requests to record her statement afresh under Section 164, Criminal Procedure Code. 

The bench of Justice Jyotsna Sharma held that the petitioner unsuccessfully tried to use the law as a tool in her hand. 

The single judge bench was dealing with a petition seeking direction to set aside an order issued by the Special Court SC/ST, District-Agra whereby the petitioner's application for recording her re-statement under section 164 of CrPC with videography had been rejected.

The FIR in the case was filed by the petitioner woman naming four persons and alleging that she was molested, disrobed and was put to mental, physical and economic exploitation.

She claimed in the FIR that the opposite party no.3 had taken Rs. 1,50,000 from her, giving her a false assurance for securing a job and now, his wife, father, and brother had been threatening her and not letting her continue with her Ph.D. course etc.

On the basis of this information, a case was registered under sections 323, 506, 354(kha) of I.P.C., 3(1)(da), 3(1)(dha) and 3(2)(va) SC/ST Act 1987 (Amendment 2015).

During the course of the investigation, the statement of the petitioner/victim under Section 164 CrPC was recorded. Thereafter, her statement under Section 164 CrPC was recorded for a second time a month later.

Then again, the petitioner/victim moved an application, almost 11 days after her second statement saying that her earlier statements were not correctly recorded.

She said that the Magistrate did not write what was told by her, therefore, her statement under section 164 CrPC may be recorded once again with a videography of the proceedings.

This application of the petitioner was dismissed by the Special Court. 

The high court noted that while moving the instant petition under Article 227, the petitioner conveniently concealed the fact that earlier an application was moved by the Investigation Officer of the case for recording her statement for the third time and the same was rejected by the Chief Judicial Magistrate observing that the statement of the woman had already been recorded two times earlier.

"There is nothing in law to prevent the I.O. from moving an application for recording of statement of the witness/victim under section 164 Cr.P.C. for the second time or so on. For certain good reasons, the statement under sections 164 Cr.P.C. can be recorded more than once. But that doesn't mean that victim or the I.O. can keep on giving such applications for recording of statements any number of times without any good cause," said the single judge bench. 

Court opined that doing so will destroy the sanctity of such statements and in my view, shall frustrate the very purpose behind such statements.

"This is conceivable that there may be instances where some new fact may come to light during investigation and a second statement might become necessary. This is just to elaborate the point involved. In such circumstance, a second statement may be recorded. However, in case, such a practice is allowed to be routinized, without imposing necessary checks and balances, whole system shall crumble," the bench highlighted. 

Court stressed in its opinion there were no good reasons to record statement of the victim for a third time.

Therefore, court ordered, "The court concerned rightly dismissed her application. My opinion is that the petitioner unsuccessfully tried to to use the law as a tool in her hand. Such practice needs to be discouraged therefore, while dismissing this petition, I impose a cost of Rs. 20,000/- on the petitioner".

Case Title: Smt. Manorama Singh v. State Of U.P. And 3 Others