Context:

• Recently, the Supreme Court of India ruled that a charge sheet (the Final Report specified by the CrPC 1973) filed against an accused in a criminal case is not a ‘public document’ within the meaning of the RTI Act 2005 or the Indian Evidence Act.
• Therefore, the demand that a charge sheet in a criminal case should be uploaded onto a public website as soon as it is filed in court was unacceptable.
• The article highlights that the top court’s order against public scrutiny of a charge sheet before a trial begins is a setback to judicial reform and will only hamper the quality of an investigation. 

Latest Efforts by the Apex Court to Improve Transparency:

• It agreed to the live telecast of some of its hearings - a move warmly welcomed by activists clamouring for more openness in judicial proceedings.
• The SC’s judgments will now be translated in four languages (Hindi, Gujarati, Odia and Tamil), as the English language in its ‘legal avatar’ is not comprehensible to 99.9% of the citizens.

Analysing the Recent Verdict on Chargesheet:

• Not in sync with time:
  • In the early days of the Constitution, confidentiality was the mantra in every aspect of judicial activity.
  • Courts then were a sacrosanct institution, where slightest criticism of judicial decisions stood a fair chance of inviting contempt and punishment.
  • Now, judges are often criticised in the media for their judicial decisions that are unconventional and not in line with popular expectations.
  • It is against this backdrop that the recent SC decision could be disapproved by those who are constantly pushing to expand the frontiers of judicial transparency.
• Contradicts an earlier order: In Youth Bar Association of India vs Union of India (2016), the SC directed that the First Information Report (FIR) should be on the relevant investigating agency’s website within 24 hours of its registration.
• The Court’s view:
  • The charge sheet is on a different footing from the FIR, and hence cannot be shared with anyone other than the accused and the victim.
  • This was presumably because a charge sheet was a comprehensive account of the crime in question and had vital information such as a list of prosecution witnesses, etc.
  • Though such material would become public knowledge during the trial, the accused and the victim would suffer if information from these documents gets disclosed, before a trial starts.
  • The Court has observed that open publicity to what is contained in the final report is not within the scheme contemplated by the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

Benefits of Chargesheet in the Public Domain:

• Critical analysis by an expert may enhance the quality of an investigation.
• This will be a wake-up call to all investigating agencies, including the CBI, which have often been assailed by courts for delays in filing a charge sheet or for the poor quality of investigation.
• A trial court will actually benefit from outsider scrutiny of the prosecution case.
• Prevent wrong prosecution (not based on facts) against innocent individuals.
• For example, court scrutiny is a good feature in India’s criminal justice system that reasonably ensures that false prosecution of an innocent individual is only an aberration and not a rule.

Drawbacks of Chargesheet in the Public Domain: In order to weaken the prosecution's case, vested interests working with the accused may look for gaps in the charge sheet. 

Conclusion:

• The likelihood of charge sheets that are loosely framed will decrease if the public has the opportunity to see them, at least in significant cases before a trial starts.
• While it need not necessarily be posted on the website of the court concerned, sharing a charge sheet with the public on demand is very much in order.