Law and You >Procedural Laws > CrPC > Principles of Fair Trial and CrPC (Post-Trial Stage)
It is always said that “justice should not only be done, but it should appear to have been done”. “Trial, the hearing of a case, civil or criminal before a Judge who has jurisdiction over it according to the laws of the land. A trial is the finding out by due examination of the truth of the point in issue or question between the parties, whereupon judgment may be given. It is the duty of the presiding judge to explore every avenue open to him in order to discover the truth and to advance the cause of justice. The primary object of a criminal trial is to ensure a fair trial. A fair trial is an open trial by an impartial judge in which all parties are treated equally. The right to a fair trial is one of the fundamental guarantees of human rights and rule of law, aimed at ensuring the administration of justice. A fair trial includes fair and proper opportunities allowed by law to prove innocence. In this article, we shall study the constituents of fair trial in post trial stage, like lawful punishment and right to appeal.
In Kalyani Baskar v. M.S. Sampoornam, (2007) 2 SCC 258 at p 262 case, the Supreme Court held that “it is essential that rules of procedure designed to ensure justice should be scrupulously followed, and the courts should be jealous (sic) in seeing that there is no breach of them.”
In Sharad Birdhichand Sarda v. State of Maharashtra, (1984) 4 SCC 116 Case, the Supreme Court stressed the following “five golden principles” that must be fulfilled before the case against an accused can be said to be fully established:
- The circumstances from which the conclusion of guilt is to be drawn should be fully established. Certainly, it is a primary principle that the accused must be and not merely may be guilty before a court can convict and the mental distance between ‘may be’ and ‘must be’ is long and divides vague conjectures from sure conclusions.
- The facts so established should be consistent only with the hypothesis of the guilt of the accused, that is to say, they should not be explainable on any other hypothesis except that the accused is guilty.
- The circumstances should be of a conclusive nature and tendency.
- They should exclude every possible hypothesis except the one to be proved.
- There must be a chain of evidence so complete as not to leave any reasonable ground for the conclusion consistent with the innocence of the accused and must show that in all human probability the act must have been done by the accused.
It is frequently argued that the rights afforded to the accused are somehow bought at the cost of the victim, the state and society at large, but that is not so. The scheme of the Indian Evidence Act and the CrPC are designed not to favour one party over the other, but to protect and safeguard the rights of all the parties concerned, and to ensure a level playing field.
Principles of Fair Trial (Post-Trial Stage):
Lawful Punishment:
Article 20(1) explains that a person can be convicted of an offence only if that act is made punishable by a law in force. It gives constitutional recognition to the rule that no one can be convicted except for the violation of a law in force. Article 20 is among those Articles of the Indian Constitution, which can’t be put aside even during an emergency. Thus, forms a cornerstone of the Indian Constitution. This provision negates the chance of retrospective implementation of laws regarding criminal offences. However, only the procedure of sentencing and convicting is what is prohibited under this clause, and not the trial itself. Thus, a person accused according to a particular procedure can’t be questioned under this clause and doctrine of Ex post facto law.
In Kedar Nath v. State of West Bengal, 1953 AIR 404 case, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India observed that, whenever an act is declared as a criminal offence and/or provides penalty for same by the legislature, it is always prospective in nature and can’t be implemented retrospectively to uphold what is being said under Article 20 (1).
In Om Prakash v. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1957 All 388 case, offering a bribe was not an offence in 1948. Section 3 of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 1952 inserted Section 165A in the Indian Penal Code, 1860, declaring offering bribes as punishable. It was held that the accused could not be punished under Section 165A for offering a bribe in 1948. Article 20(1) provides that no person shall be subjected to a penalty greater than that which might have been inflicted under the law in force at the time of the commission of the offence. It prohibits the enhancement of punishment for an offence retrospectively. But article 20(1) has no application to cases of preventive detention.
Right to Appeal:
According to The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines appeal as: “a legal proceeding by which a case is brought before a higher court for review of the decision of a lower court”. The process of criminal justice has some serious consequences on an individual’s life, primarily on the right to life and personal liberty. Decisions rendered by Courts are prone to fallibility. Hence there must be a system that can scrutinize decisions of lower courts. Everyone convicted of a crime shall have the right to appeal his conviction and sentence being reviewed by a higher tribunal according to law. According to Section 372 of CrPC, except for the statutory provisions laid down by CrPC or any other law which is in force, an appeal cannot lie from any judgment or an order of a criminal court. The proviso attached to the Section lays down that the victim has a right to appeal against any order passed by the Court under special circumstances comprising of a judgment of acquittal, a conviction for a lesser offence or inadequate compensation.
Keeping this aspect, Section 389(1) of CrPC empowers the appellate court to suspend execution of sentence, or when the convicted person in confinement, to grant bail pending any appeal to it. The court need not give notice to the public prosecutor before suspending the sentence or releasing on bail. The existence of an appeal is a condition precedent for granting bail. Bail to a convicted person is not a matter of right irrespective of whether the offence is bailable or non-bailable and should be allowed only when after reading the judgment and hearing the accused it is considered justified. CrPC contains elaborate provisions on appeals starting from Section 372 to Section 394.
In Arun Kumar vs. State of Uttar Pradesh, AIR 1989 SC 1445 case, the Supreme Court held that if the High Court found that the view taken by the Sessions Judge, to acquit the appellants was manifestly wrong, moreover, it even led to a miscarriage of justice, therefore, the High Court was correct in setting aside this acquittal and convicting them.
In M.H. Hoskot v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1978 SC 1548 case, M.H. Hoskot was convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment in 1973 for scheming to counterfeit academic degrees. Hoskot was not able to lodge an appeal till he had served his entire sentence due to, what the court termed, a possible “disturbing episode of prison injustice.” Evidence suggested that the court did not provide Hoskot with a copy of the judgment that was delivered in 1973 till 1978. When addressing this possible delay in receiving his judgment, the Supreme Court held that Article 21 requires prompt delivery of a copy of the judgment to the convict. The Court remarked that a prisoner’s right to appeal is in peril if jail officials are allowed to claim they have delivered copies of the judgment without obtaining the prisoner’s signature confirming receipt of the copy. The Court also commented that it is dubious to allow jailors to deliver copies of the judgment, and expressed hope that Jail Manuals be updated to mandate punishment of jailors who fail to obtain proof of delivery.