- (1.)A case was registered on 17. 4. 1987 under Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 r/w Section 3 and 5 of the official Secrets Act, 1923 (the OS Act for short) on a complaint dated 15. 04. 1987 of one Sh. Navin Sikand of m/s Trident Express Courier Service. A courier packet on suspicion was opened and found to contain zerox copy of documents relating to secret information on countrys defence. The petitioner is one of the accused. The accused persons numbering five were alleged to have obtained, collected and communicated defence secrets prejudicial to the safety or interest of the State in pursuance to a criminal conspiracy. On completion of investigation, a complaint was filed on 07. 02. 1989 in the court of CMM, Delhi and the case was committed to the court of Sessions on 13. 09. 1989.
(2.)THE learned Special Judge, Delhi handing the cases under the OS Act discharged all the accused on 22. 07. 1995 on account of want of sanction under Section 197 of the code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (the said Code for short ). This resulted in a fresh complaint being filed on 17/18. 12. 1996 after obtaining the said sanction for prosecution. This complaint filed before the learned CMM was once again committed to the Court of Sessions on 01. 12. 1997 but met the same fate as the last complaint on 30. 05. 1998, on the ground that the sanction was issued without application of mind. It was, however, observed that the order would not debar the CBI from coming to the Court for a third time after complying with the requirements of law. A complaint was thus filed for the third time on 22. 06. 1999 when the learned CMM took cognizance and issued process against the accused for their appearance.
(3.)THE petitioner was aggrieved by this Order of taking cognizance and issuing process and approached the delhi High Court by filing W. P. (Cr.) No. 40/2000. The petitioner inter alia pleaded that the delay in proceedings against him had deprived him of his fundamental rights to life and liberty and was thus in violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of India. It was also the case of the petitioner that the documents in question were regarding equipment which had already been given due publicity in various magazines and the matter was not a secret. This writ petition found favour with the Division Bench of this Court in terms of the Order dated 30. 05. 2001. It was found that there was no justification or reason given for defective sanction for which the prosecution alone was to blame. The Division Bench placed reliance on the judgments of the Supreme Court in Raj Deo Sharma v. State of Bihar; 1998 (5) Scale 477; JT 1998 (7) SC 1 and a. R. Antulay v. R. S. Nayak; 1992 (1) SCC 225 dealing with the guidelines for speedy trial. It was found that there was sufficient material on record to come to the conclusion that the trial had been unnecessarily delayed by the prosecution and the proceedings were quashed.