Absence of accused cannot delay trial, HC tells NIA court
Chennai: A special court handling NIA cases cannot reject an accused's application seeking to dispense with his/her personal appearance on the sole ground that it would delay the trial, said
Madras high court
, adding that such absences will not 'handicap' the trial.A division bench of Justice M S Ramesh and Justice N Senthilkumar said, "We do not endorse the view of the special court that the trial was being delayed due to the absence of the accused," while allowing an appeal by Mohammed Faruk, 11th accused in a case under Unlawful Assembly (Prevention) Act (UAPA).In the past month alone, the court was confronted with several special court orders rejecting such petitions on the ground that it is a tactic to delay the trial.
"We hasten to add that the power of the special court to deal with either Section 317 petition or petition to recall NBW is a discretionary power. However, such discretionary powers require to be exercised judicially, with extreme care and caution, which ratio has been consistently reiterated by Supreme Court in several of its decisions."There's no doubt CrPC Section 273 envisages recording of evidence in presence of an accused, but CrPC empowers trial courts to proceed with recording of evidence in the absence of an accused under Section 299, it said.The court then set aside the special court's order, recalled an NBW against the petitioner, and directed him to cooperate in the trial proceedings.
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