Guwahati, Sept. 9: Gauhati High Court has said bail applications can be disposed of without production of case diaries.

So far it has been the practice in courts to dispose of bail pleas after perusal of the case diary. Usually, in bailable offences the police can grant bail while the court is moved for cases registered under non-bailable sections.

In the order dated September 4, a copy of which is with The Telegraph, a single judge bench of acting Chief Justice K. Sreedhar Rao observed that case diaries are called for in almost all cases. "Such a practice does not appear to be a just course for adjudicating the bail applications," he said.

In his order, passed in connection with bail application number 1363/2015, Justice Rao said, "The public prosecutors, while filing objections, shall have to take proper instructions from the investigating officers and collect all necessary details and incorporate all those details in the objections statement and that should be proper material for the court to consider the bail applications or otherwise."

A criminal lawyer, on condition of anonymity, said such an order was unheard of and what he failed to comprehend was how an objection statement containing relevant details of the case, which is prepared by a public prosecutor, can substitute the case diary, which is a record of day-to-day investigation of a case.

The lawyer questioned what would happen if an intentional or unintentional lapse on the part of the investigating officer or the public prosecutor results in a crucial information of the investigation, present in the case diary, not being included in the bail objection statement submitted in the court, helping the accused secure bail.

In a criminal case, a case diary is a vital piece of record, containing details of the time at which the information reached the investigation officer, the time at which the investigation began and was closed, the place or places visited by the investigation officer in connection with the probe and a statement of the facts and circumstances ascertained through investigation.

Justice Rao was of the view that this (new) procedure, if adopted, would reduce the delay in disposal of the bail applications and also obviate the unnecessary hardship caused by the investigating officers in bringing the case diaries, sometimes from distant places. It is a fact that many a time, an accused is denied bail because the police have not produced the case diary. So far, it has been seen that without the case diary a judge is unlikely to grant bail.

Justice Rao also directed sessions judges to scrutinise the case diary while disposing of the bail applications, to highlight all details and materials of the investigation present in the case diary so that it would help public prosecutors at the high court to collect any materials required for filing objections to the bail application. He directed the registry of the high court to circulate the copy of the order to all the courts in the state.