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The apex court allowed an appeal filed by CBI against the Madhya Pradesh High Court's judgement, which had held that since Hindi was the official language of the criminal courts in the state, the accused were entitled to get the translation of the chargesheets filed against them by the CBI in the cases related to Vyapam scam, connected to irregularities in the examinations
The Supreme Court has declared that there is no provision in the Criminal Procedure Code mandating investigating agencies to provide the copy of chargesheets in court language.
It also held that filing of the chargesheet in the language other than the court language was not illegal and that no accused can seek default bail on the ground that chargesheet, though filed within the time was in the language that he does not understand.
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Rajesh Bindal said, coming to the issue of the language of the final report/charge sheet under Section 173, there is no specific provision in CrPC which requires the investigating agency/officer to file it in the language of the court, determined in accordance with Section 272 of CrPC.
"Even if such a requirement is read into Section 173, per se, the proceedings will not be vitiated if the report is not in the language of the court. The test of failure of justice will have to be applied in such a case as laid down in Section 465 of CrPC," the bench said.
According to Section 272 of CrPC, the respective state government may determine what shall be, the language of each court within the state other than the High Court.
"The power under Section 272 is not a power to decide which language shall be used by the investigating agencies or the police for the purposes of maintaining the record of the investigation. At the highest, for that purpose, the provisions regarding the law governing the official language of the State may apply subject to the provisions contained in such enactment," the bench said.
In a given case, while prescribing a form as required by Sub section (2) of Section 173, the state government may provide that the charge sheet must be filed in the official language of the state, the bench added.
After going through the provisions of the CrPC, the bench, thus, said, the conclusion which can be drawn is that wherever the legislature intended, there is a specific provision incorporated requiring the court to mandatorily use the language of the court in the proceedings.
"There is no such requirement laid down in respect of the report/charge sheet under Section 173 of CrPC," the bench said.
In its submission, the CBI said accused were highly educated and had knowledge of the English language, so no prejudice would be caused to them, if the charge sheet was in English language. It further said charge sheets in Vyapam scam cases are very bulky and their translation into Hindi is a very time¬ consuming and costly process.
The bench said an accused may ask for supplying translated version of the charge sheet and other documents under Section 207 and 208 of the CrPC, subject to him satisfying the court that he is unable to understand the language in which the charge sheet is submitted.
However, when the accused is represented by an advocate who fully is conversant with the language of the charge sheet, there will not be any requirement of furnishing translations to the accused as the advocate can explain the contents of the charge sheet to the accused, the bench said.
"If both the accused and his advocate are not conversant with the language in which the charge sheet has been filed, then the question of providing translation may arise. The reason is that the accused must get a fair opportunity to defend himself. He must know and understand the material against him in the charge sheet. That is the essence of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. With the availability of various software and Artificial Intelligence tools for making translations, providing translations will not be that difficult now. In such cases, the courts can always direct the prosecution to provide a translated version of the charge sheet. But we must hasten to add that a charge sheet filed within the period provided either under Section 167 of CrPC or any other relevant statute in a language other than the language of the court or the language which the accused does not understand, is not illegal and no one can claim a default bail on that ground," the bench said.
"There is one more aspect of the matter. There are central agencies like the National Investigation Agency, Central Bureau of Investigation, etc. These agencies investigate serious offences or offences having wide ramifications. Obviously, such central agencies, in every case will not be in a position to file the final report in the language of the concerned court as determined by Section 272 of CrPC," the bench said.Case Title: Central Bureau of Investigation Vs. Narottam DhakkadClick here to read more
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