ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has held that giving access to persons not associated with the process of investigation and facilitating them to interfere, directly or indirectly, with the criminal proceedings violates the law and gravely affects the fairness of the trial and the rights of an accused.
A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Athar Minallah and comprising Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmad Khan announced detailed judgement in a murder case.
The court had acquitted one Shahid Ali from charge framed against him by extending the benefit of doubt and he was ordered to be released from prison forthwith, if not required to be detained in any other matter.
The appellant had filed an appeal in the apex court against the judgement issued by the Sindh High Court, passed on March 15, 2021, in criminal appeal titled Shahid Ali verses the State.
The crime, in the case, related to the gruesome murder of Wasim Akram, who was around seven or eight years old when his lifeless body was discovered lying in a water tank and was recovered by police officials on 09.03.2014, pursuant to information given by the father of the appellant.
The court had conducted hearings in the appeal in January and February after allowing the appeal. “It is a misconduct in the case of an investigator or a person in authority, such as the In charge of a Police Station, to give access to or facilitate any person to interfere with the course of investigation in violation of the procedure prescribed under the CrPC,” says the 25-page detailed judgment, authored by Justice Athar Minallah.
The court held that access and permission cannot be given to a private person such as a person engaged in the profession of journalism, to record the statement of an accused in the nature of a confession while he or she is in custody.
“Any such statement would be inadmissible under the mandate of Article 39 of the Ordinance of 1984,” the court declared. The court noted that the media, whether print or electronic, is also responsible to self-regulate its reporting and airing of programmes by setting out and adopting standard operating procedures (SOPs), having regard to the international best practices.
The court held that the regulatory authorities are also expected to consider proposing such SOPs in consultation with the stakeholders with the object of safeguarding the rights of the parties, particularly during an investigation.
“The case before us is a classic example as the accused was in custody and the competent court had ordered his physical remand exclusively for the purpose of investigation,” the judgement said, adding that he was presumed to be innocent.
The court noted that the in charge of police station and the investigation officer gave access to a journalist to interview an accused who was in their custody, adding that his statement was recorded on a camera and then disseminated to the general public by airing it through a private television channel.
“The victim of this gruesome and heinous crime and his family members were likely to have been effected as well,” the court held, adding that the in charge of police station and IO had adopted a process which they were presumed to know that it was not mandated by law and likely to have led to grave violations of the rights of the accused.
“They are presumed to have known that by doing so they, through the media, were creating the perception of guilt while the custody of the accused was given to them solely for the investigation and then to file a report before the competent court under section 173 of CrPC,” the judgement said.
The court declared that an inadmissible purported confession of the accused was relayed to the public through the media regarding a crime committed against a child. The court held that the appellant was not produced before a competent magistrate under Section 164 of CrPC.
“This course adopted by the in charge of police station and the IO may have been for multiple reasons such as showing to the public their performance or to deal with public pressure and its expectation to bring the perpetrators to justice,” said the judgement.
“Prima facie, there is no bona fide reason nor was it in the public interest to adopt such a course,” the court ruled, adding that the right of the appellant to be presumed innocent till his guilt was proved beyond reasonable doubt was gravely violated and undermined.
The court noted that he was presented to the public as a person confessing his guilt. The court ruled that the public, through such sensational and illegal presentation, was likely to believe the appellant to have been guilty of one of the most detestable crimes for which he wasn’t even charged till then nor had the investigation been completed.
“The right to dignity and privacy, implicit therein, was breached,” it said, adding that the irretrievable harm caused to his reputation and being stigmatised would live with him despite his acquittal.
The court held that the narrative created by airing the programme on a private television channel had definitely interfered with and gravely undermined the fairness of the trial and the right to be presumed innocent.
“It is not unusual for the electronic media to show accused persons parading in front of the cameras or reporters, aggressively questioning the accused in criminal cases while they are in custody during the course of investigation,” it said.
The court declared that it is an obligation of each government, federal and provincial, to take immediate effective measures in ensuring that this phenomenon comes to an end. “The respective governments are responsible to safeguard the rights of the parties in criminal proceedings, particularly an accused, and the fairness of the process of investigation,” said the judgement.
