ARIVAZHAGAN versus STATE, REPRESENTED BY INSPECTOR OF POLICE

Citation: [2000] 2 S.C.R. 155 · Decided: 08-03-2000 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: K.T. THOMAS · Disposal: Disposed off

Judgment (excerpt)

, ' 
... 
ARIVAZHAGAN 
v. 
STATE, REPRESENTED BY INSPECTOR OF POLICE 
MARCH 8, 2000 
[K.T. THOMAS AND M.B. SHAH, JJ.] 
Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 : 
Section 243( 1 )-Scope of 
Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 : Sections 13( 1 )( c) and 22. 
Criminal Trial-Accused-Defence witnesses-Liberty to produce-Ex-
tent of-List of witnesses-Object and purpose of-Accused charged under 
Section 13( 1 )( c) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 read with Section 
109 of the Indian Penal _Code-List of 267 Defence Witnesses submitted by 
accused-Number of witnesses short listed by Special Judge-Marginal en-
hancement by High Court-Appeal before Supreme Court-Held no interfer-
ence was called for with the impugned order-However, if interest of justice 
required Special Judge may allow accused to examine additional witnesses. 
The appellant was prosecuted under Section 13(1)(c) of the Preven-
tion of Corruption Act, 1988 read with Section 109 of the Indian Penal 
Code, 1860. He submitted a list of 267 witnesses in his defence. The Special 
Judge made a scrutiny of the list and pruned it down. As the appellant was 
not willing to reduce the number of witnesses, he approached the High 
Court which enhanced the number of witnesses marginally. 
In appeal to this Court it was contended on: behalf of the appellant 
A 
B 
c· 
D 
E 
F 
that the position envisaged in Section 243(1) of the Code of Criminal 
Procedure, 1973 without the interjection of Section 22 of the Prevention of 
Corruption Act, 1988 has a different perception, and therefore, once the 
Court decided to call upon the accused to enter on his defence there is no 
G 
discretion vested with the trial Judge to vivisect the list for the purpose of 
eliminating certain names therefrom . 
. Disposing the appeal, this Court 
HELD: 1. The pruning exercise undertaken by the trial court and 
H. 
155 
A 
B 
c 
D 
E 
F 
G 
156 
SUPREME COURT REPORTS 
(2000] 2 S.C.R. 
the High Court was within the limits permitted by law. [164-B] 
2. The purpose of furnishing a list of witnesses and documents to the 
Court before the accused is called upon to enter on his defence, is to afford 
an occasion to the court to peruse the list. On such perusal, if the court feels 
that examination of at least some of the persons mentioned in the list is 
quite unnecessary to prove the defence plea and the time which would be 
needed for completing the examination of such witnesses would only result 
in procrastination, it is the duty of the court to short list such witnesses. H 
the court feels that the list is intended only to delay the proceedings, the 
court is well within its powers to disallow even the whole ofit. [163-D-E] 
3. In the present case it was the ground of delay which the Special 
Judge countenanced as the ground for pruning down the massive list of 
witnesses presented by the appellant. Normally no court would mind if the 
list contains only a handful of names because the court would not then 
bother much about the delay factor. But when the list contains a crowd of 
names of witnesses the court will certainly make a serious exercise to 
ascertain whether examination of all those witnesses is necessary in the 
interest of justice even at the risk of procrastination. [160-D-EJ 
4. The position of an accused is involved in a trial under the P.C. Act 
is more cuµibered than an accused in other cases due to legislative curbs. 
One of them is envisaged in Section 22 of the P.C. Act. The court is ~10t 
obliged to direct an accused involved under the P.C. Act to enter upon his 
defence until the Special Court has the occasion to see the list of his 
witnesses and also the list of his documents to be adduced in evidence on the 
defence side. An accused in other cases has to be called upon to enter on his 
defence irrespective of whether he would propose to adduce defence evi-
dence because it is a choice to be exercised by him only after he is called 
upon to enter on his defence. But the accusecl under P .C. Act need be called 
upon to enter on his defence only after the trial judge has occasion to peruse 
the names of the witnesses as well as the purpose of examination of each one 
of them, and also the nature of the documents which he proposed to adduce 
as his evidence. [161-F-H] 
5. Section 22 of the P.C. Act has amended sub-section (1) of Section 
243 of the Code in its applicationto the trial of offences under the P.C. Act. 
Section 7-A was introduced in the erstwhile P.C. Act by Act 4

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