YASHWANT VARMA,J. - (1.) Heard Sri Dilip Kumar, learned counsel for the applicant and Sri Vinod Kant, the learned Additional Advocate General who appears for the respondent No.1.
(2.) This application under section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 19731 seeks to question the correctness of an order dated 24 July 2017 passed by the Additional District and Sessions Judge during the course of a trial relating to Sessions Trial No.11 of 2014 and prays for its consequential quashing invoking the inherent powers of this Court. By means of the said order an application moved on behalf of the accused for production of a video compact disc [C.D.] regarding an alleged video recording of the statement of the prosecutrix has come to be rejected. The trial court has noted that despite repeated requests, the CD was not produced. It has also noted the statement of PW8, who is stated to have submitted that the said CD is neither available in the police station concerned nor is it available in the "malkhana". In view thereof the court below has proceeded to record that the CD is not available with the police and consequently noted the impossibility of granting the prayers made in the application moved by the applicant-accused.
(3.) Sri Dilip Kumar, learned counsel appearing in support of this application, has taken the Court through the statement of the prosecutrix as well as of PW8 to highlight a position of contradictions which appears and come to the fore in light of the fact while at one stage it is asserted that the statement of the prosecutrix was videographed during the course of which she is alleged to have named four persons who committed the offence upon on her, at a subsequent stage the prosecutrix proceeds to take the position that she took no such names. On the other hand he refers to the statement of PW8 who asserts that a video recording of her statement was made and thereafter proceeds to state that the prosecutrix had submitted that she was not raped by the accused. It is in this backdrop, in the submission of Sri Kumar, that the video recording of the statement of the prosecutrix assumes significance. It was his submission that the failure on the part of the prosecution to produce the same has caused prejudice to the accused and it is apparent that crucial evidence has been withheld as a consequence of which the provisions of Section 114 (g) of the Evidence Act, 1872 would stand attracted. Sri Kumar also referred to the provisions of section 65B of the 1872 Act to submit that the production of the C.D. along with a certificate is an issue which would have arisen only after its production in court.;