Prosecution Can Be Allowed To Produce Documents Which Were Omitted To Be Submitted Along With Chargesheet : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court held that a bona fide omission by the prosecution to submit relied-upon documents to the magistrate does not prevent it from producing those documents after the charge sheet is filed, regardless of whether they were gathered before or after the investigation.

The court said that procedural lapses in submitting evidence can be remedied post-chargesheet, provided there is no prejudice to the accused.

“if there is an omission on the part of the prosecution in forwarding the relied upon documents to the learned Magistrate, even after the chargesheet is submitted, the prosecution can be permitted to produce the additional documents which were gathered prior to or subsequent to the investigation.”, the court observed.

The bench comprising Justices Abhay S Oka and AG Masih heard the case where the prosecution sought to produce additional documents in the form of Compact Disc (CDs), which were referred to in the supplementary charge sheet, but it omitted to produce them to the magistrate. Later on, during the stage of trial, the prosecution sought the Court's approval to produce CDs as additional evidence, which was allowed by the magistrate.

Subsequently, the High Court upheld the production of the CDs, prompting the accused to approach the Supreme Court.

Before the Supreme Court, the appellant argued that Section 173(5) Cr.P.C. mandates contemporaneous filing of all relevant documents with the chargesheet. The CDs were available during the initial investigation and thus cannot be introduced later under the guise of "further investigation" under Section 173(8).

Per contra, the prosecution argued that the CDs were referenced in the supplementary chargesheet but left out inadvertently, and no prejudice would be caused as the defence/appellant retained the right to challenge the CDs' authenticity during trial. The omission was bona fide and curable as per the judgment of Central Bureau of Investigation v. R S Pai and Anr, (2002) 5 SCC 82, which allows post-chargesheet production of documents if no malice or prejudice is involved.

It was held in R S Pai that "if there is an omission on the part of the prosecution in forwarding the relied upon documents to the learned Magistrate, even after the chargesheet is submitted, the prosecution can be permitted to produce the additional documents which were gathered prior to or subsequent to the investigation."

Rejecting the Appellant's argument, the judgment authored by Justice Oka emphasized that the documents referred to in the charge sheet wouldn't be treated as a new evidence warranting invocation of Section 173(8) Cr.P.C., and therefore, CDs can be produced even post-submission of charge sheet.

The Court endorsed the principle laid down in R.S. Pai, permitting rectification of inadvertent omissions if they do not compromise the accused's rights.

“In the facts of the case, the CDs were seized and referred for forensic analysis to the CFSL along with voice samples of the accused. The CDs were referred to in the supplementary chargesheet. After the report of the CFSL was received, the supplementary chargesheet was filed for placing on record the said report. Therefore, when the CDs were sought to be produced, in a sense, they were not new articles; the CDs were very much referred to in the supplementary chargesheet filed on 13th October 2013. There was only an omission on the part of the respondent-CBI to produce the CDs. Therefore, applying the law laid down in the case of R.S.Pai, the impugned judgments of the Special Court and the High Court cannot be faulted with.”, the court observed.

Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed.

Case Title: Sameer Sandhir versus Central Bureau of Investigation

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 627

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Appearance:

For Appellant(s) : Mr. Kapil Sibal, Sr. Adv. Mr. Ankur Chawla, Adv. Mr. Aditya Pujari, Adv. Mr. Aamir Khan, Adv. Mr. Jayant Mohan, AOR Ms. Adya Shree Dutta, Adv.

For Respondent(s) : Mr. Rajkumar Bhaskar Thakare, A.S.G. Mr. Mukesh Kumar Maroria, AOR Mr. Sanjay Kr. Tyagi, Adv. Mr. Piyush Beriwal,Adv. Mr. Zoheb Hussain, Adv. Mr. Annam Venkatesh, Adv. Mr. Vivek Gurnani,Adv. Mr. Aakansha Kaul, Adv. Ms. Nidhi Khanna,Adv. Mr. S.K.Gupta,Adv. Mr. Rajesh Kumar Singh,Adv. Mr. Ishaan Sharma,Adv. Mr. Kartik Sabharwal,Adv. Mr. Pranjal Tripathi,Adv.