Chandigarh, December 16
While disposing of an application of Kalyani Singh, the accused in the murder case of Sukhmanpreet Singh Sidhu, alias Sippy Sidhu, for providing deficit documents in the chargesheet, the court of Special Judicial Magistrate stated that the accused was entitled only to legible copy of documents relied upon and a cloned copy of electronic evidence, while her request for remaining documents/data was declined.
In application filed under Section 207 of the CrPC, Kalyani had asked the court to issue directions to the CBI to provide all documents whether relied upon or not by the CBI in the report filed under Section 173(8) of the CrPC.
The counsel for the accused said it was mandatory for the investigating agency to provide all documents procured during the investigation to the accused. The counsel said most documents supplied were either dim or completely illegible, while electronic data had not been given at all. He said the prosecution was under obligation to provide complete data of WhatsApp chats and emails.
On the other hand, the public prosecutor of the CBI said all documents mentioned in the chargesheet had already been supplied to the accused.
After hearing of the arguments, the court directed the CBI to make necessary arrangements to prepare coloured copies of photographs of the Zen car captured in CCTV cameras installed at the residence of the deceased. The court said as per versions of the accused, they had been supplied only photostat copies of those photographs. Since supplied copies were not legible and the accused was not supplied a copy of CCTV footage from which the photographs were extracted, the prosecution (CBI) was required to supply coloured photocopies of these five photographs along with a cloned copy of relevant CCTV footage from which these photographs were extracted.
The court also issued directions to supply coloured photocopies of eight photographs along with a cloned copy of the relevant CCTV footage of Thapar Shoes, Sector 19, Chandigarh. Besides, the CBI was directed to provide coloured photographs of the crime scene at Green Park as demanded. The court further directed to provide a clear copy of emails Kalyani Singh exchanged with Sippy Sidhu from June 25, 2015 to July 30, 2015, and August 1, 2015, to September 14, 2015, and a coloured photocopy of the computerised sketch of suspect.
