Amendment in the Calcutta High Court Criminal (Subordinate Courts)-Rules dt 15 Jul 2022

AMENDMENTS

The following Rule 91 A shall be inserted after Rule 91 with a separate heading:

2A. Supply of documents to the accused

Rule 91 A :
Every Accused shall be supplied with statements of witness recorded under Sections 161 and 164 of the Code and a list of documents, material objects and exhibits seized during investigation and relied upon by the Investigating Officer (IO) in accordance with Sections 207 and 208 of the Code.

Explanation:

The list of statements, documents, material objects and exhibits shall specify statements, documents,
material objects and exhibits that are not relied upon by the Investigating Officer.
The following Rules 92A and 92B shall be inserted as Chapter IV(A) with the heading :

CHAPTER IV(A)
CHARGE & TRIAL in General

Rule 92 A :

(1) The order framing charge shall be accompanied by a formal charge in Form 32, Schedule II of the Code to be prepared personally by the Presiding Officer after complete and total application of mind.
(2) After framing of charges, the accused shall be referred to only by their ranks in the array of accused in the charge and not by their names or other references except at the stage of identification by the witness.

Rule 92 B :

Immediately after framing of charge, the Court shall ascertain if the parties wish to carry out admission of any document under Section 294 of the Code and permit them to do so. Thereafter the court shall hold a scheduling hearing, to ascertain and fix consecutive dates for recording of evidence having regard to the nature of witnesses viz. whether they are material witnesses, eyewitnesses, formal witnesses or expert witnesses. The court then shall draw up a schedule indicating the consecutive dates on which the witnesses would be examined.

The following Rule shall be inserted after Rule 97 (z) in chapter v:

Rule 97 (3) :

Sessions cases may be given precedence over all other work and no other work should be taken up on
sessions days until the sessions work for the day is completed. A Sessions case once posted should not
be postponed unless that is unavoidable, and once the trial has begun, it should proceed continuously
from day to day till it is completed. If for any reason, a case has to be adjournea oriortpor.d,l;ir*”it”,
should be givenforthwith to both sides and immediate steps be takenio stop thewitnesses and secure
their presence on the adjourned date.

The heading “Bail Bonds,, of Chapter VII be substituted by ,,Bail and Bail Bonds,’

CHAPTER VII
Bail and Bail Bonds
The following Rules shall be inserted before Rule 125 of chapter vII :
Rule 124A:

(1) The application for bail in non-bailable cases must ordinarily be disposed of within a period of 3 to
7 days from the date of first hearing. If the application is not disposed of within such period, the
Presiding Officer shall furnish reasons thereof in the order itself. Copy of the order and the reply to the bail application or status report (by the police or prosecution) if any, shall be furnished to the accused or his advocate on the date of pronouncement of the order itself.
(2) The Presiding Officer may, in an appropriate case in its discretion insist on a statement to be filed
by the prosecutor in charge of the case.

The following Rules shall be inserted after Rule 133 :
Rule I33 A :
(1) The deposition of each witness shall be recorded dividing it into separate paragraphs assigning
paragraph numbers.
(2) Prosecution witnesses shall be numbered as PW-1, PW-2 etc, in seriatim. Similarly, defence witnesses shall be numbered as DW-I, DW-2, etc, in seriatim. The Court witnesses shall be numbered as CW-I, CW-2, etc, in seriatim.
(3) The record of depositions shall indicate the date of the chief examination, the cross examination
and re-examination.
(4) The Presiding Officers shall wherever necessary record the deposition in question and answer
format.
(5) Objections by either the prosecution or the defence counsel shall be taken note of and reflected in
the evidence and decided immediately, in accordance with law, or, at the discretion of the Learned
Judge, at the end of the deposition of the witness in question.
(6) The name and number of the witness shall be clearly stated on any subsequent date, if the evidence is not concluded on the date on which it begins.

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