Expedition cannot be at cost of fairness of trial: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has emphasized that a speedy trial is indeed in the interest of an accused who claims innocenceHowever expediting a trial should not come at the expense of its fairness as that would go against all principles of justice The Court made this statement while allowing an accused in the Delhi Riots case to recall a prosecution witness for crossexaminationThe Court suggested that adjourning the trial to a shorter date would be a balanced and appropriate course of action for the trial court to adoptWe must not delude ourselves into believing that the purpose of an expeditious trial would be served by denying an accused a fair and reasonable opportunity to crossexamine a prosecution witness on a critical issue This does not mean that long and unnecessary adjournments should be granted at will especially when a witness is under crossexamination However rescheduling a case for crossexamination by a day or two when there is a good reason for it cannot be faulted the High Court observedThe Court noted that denying the right to crossexamine on an important issue appears to have been a disproportionate sense of expedition by the trial courtJustice Anup Jairam Bhambhani stressed that a speedy trial cannot come at the cost of a fair trial Therefore he allowed the plea by the accused Mohd Danish to recall prosecution witness Head Constable HC Shashikant for crossexaminationThe Court allowed Danish the opportunity to crossexamine Shashikant on a day fixed by the trial courtDanish argued that Shashikant had neither mentioned nor recognized him in his statements during the investigation However during his deposition before the Court Shashikant had recognized DanishSince the Senior Advocate representing Danish was not present before the trial court on that day Shashikant could not be crossexaminedIt was argued that crossexamining Shashikant is essential to comprehend how he suddenly identified Danish in court in 2025 for an incident that occurred in 2020 This is particularly important given that he did not mention Danish in his statement recorded during the investigation in 2020It was also pointed out that the Danish had not been subjected to a Test Identification ParadeThe State Public Prosecutor SPP argued that adjournment for crossexamination could not have been granted as it would cause a delay in the trialThe Court did not agree with the SPPs arguments and observed that while unnecessary adjournments should not be granted at this stage of the trial it should not come at the cost of a fair trialWhile unnecessary adjournments should never be granted especially during the deposition stage one must not lose sight of the ultimate purpose of the exercise which is to conduct a fair trial The recording depositions expeditiously serve this purpose the Court statedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever