Transcription is not mandatory to prove the admissibility of electronic evidence/ video
Shubham
Budhiraja[1]
Criminal Case registered
against A & B under the NDPS Act. It is the Prosecution case that Ganja was
found while raid at their houses where both A&B were found with packets of
Ganja. This was video graphed as well. The CD was marked as exhibit with 65B
Certificate and Videographer deposed as well. The Trial Court hold A&B as
guilty whereas High Court set aside the judgment and directed for re-trial
because both videos should have been played every-time when witnesses were examined
to ask them about contents of it, which was not done. The Hon’ble Supreme Court
held as under[2]:
1.
The CD is an electronic record and once
the requirement of Section 65B is fulfilled it becomes an admissible piece of
evidence, like a document, and the video recorded therein is akin to contents
of a document which can be seen and heard to enable the Court to draw
appropriate inference(s).
2.
No doubt, there may be an occasion where
to appreciate contents of a video an explanatory statement may be needed, but
that would depend on the facts of a case.
3.
However, it
is not the requirement of law that the contents of the video would become
admissible only if it is reduced to a transcript in the words of a witness who
created the video or is noticed in the video.
4.
If the High Court, as an appellate court,
had difficulty in understanding the contents of the video, which was part of the
record, it could have called for the presence of the accused as well as the
witnesses or their respective lawyers to explain to the Court the significance
of what appears in that video. Besides, the power to take additional evidence
is there under Section 391 of CrPC. However, to merely understand the video, in
our view, there is no justification to order a re-trial and fresh recording of
evidence.
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