Part XII - Trial - Police Functioning Demystified

Continued from https://cvshreejeev.wixsite.com/website/post/part-xi-journey-of-a-case-from-fir-to-court-verdict-police-functioning-demystified

Trial

After framing of charges, on day one of the Trial, the Judge will ask the Accused whether they are guilty of the offenses mentioned in the charge-sheet or not. The Accused either pleads ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’. The Trial proceeds if the Accused pleads ‘not guilty’.

The Police (Prosecution) will be represented by the Public Prosecutor and the Accused would be defended by the Defence Lawyer appointed by the Accused. The Accused will have to sign a Vakalatnama authorizing the Defence Lawyer to represent his case in Court. The Public Prosecutor would be helped by a Pairvy Officer (Any Police Officer of that branch who was not the IO of that particular case) for logistics and documents purposes. The Investigating Officer of a case cannot be the Pairvy Officer of the same case.

In very high profile cases where there is a likelihood of the Accused employing top criminal lawyers to defend them in Court, the Prosecution may also hire top Private Lawyers for that case as Special Public Prosecutor (Spl. PP), who would be paid on a “Per Hearing” basis eg. Advocate Ujjwal Nikam who represented the Prosecution as Spl.PP in several high-profile cases including the 1993 Mumbai Blast case, Gulshan Kumar murder case, etc.

In very rare cases, when the Accused is too poor to appoint a Defence Lawyer for himself or if no Lawyer is ready to Defend a particular Accused, the Court is bound to appoint an “Amicus Curiae” – A Private Lawyer to represent that Accused to put forth his / her defense or to assist in the Judicial proceedings in Court. A classic example is that of Ajmal Kasab, the lone terrorist captured alive in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack case. The legal fees of the Amicus Curiae is borne by the Government.

After examining all the Accused and Witnesses, the Court either Acquits or Convicts the accused.

The Court gives time to both the Prosecution and the Defence to go in appeal against the verdict, in the higher Court. If no appeal is filed within the stipulated time, the verdict stands. If an appeal is filed by either party, the Trial goes to the higher Court who may, after hearing both sides, either uphold the verdict of the lower Court or give a fresh verdict.

In Part I of this blog, I had mentioned that I would be publishing 12 parts of the blog on “Police Functioning Demystified”. However, on popular demand, I am going to continue this series. In the next part, I will be talking about “Private Detective Agencies vs The Police Department”.