Investigation (Part 3)

Now it is your legal right that your statement be recorded, it is your legal right that you have your witnesses' statements recorded. It is your legal right that you get your CDR, your call data record, obtained — if he doesn't do this, knock on the court's door under 22-A CrPC: here is my statement, here are my witnesses' statements, here is my application requesting that the CDR be obtained — the investigating officer is not doing any of this. The court will summon him and say, well, tell us, is this document on your record? He'll say, sir, it hasn't come in yet. The court will say, here, take it, get the CDR obtained now — he says, no sir. The court will say, it's your responsibility, why should this come to you — get the CDR obtained yourself — what kind of investigation are you conducting? Once it's in his statement that I was not present at the scene, get his phone's CDR obtained — what more investigation do you need to do?

If a person says I was never at the scene, the allegations against me are false, this is old enmity, on the basis of which my name was given — this man against whom the incident occurred is a man with many enemies, not just one, but dozens of enemies, who knows which enemy struck against him. He used this recent hostility, giving my name in order to implicate me, in order to blackmail me — this is a remedy, if it isn't done, what should you do?

Now, on the court's current outlook, the outlook prevailing at the time — because the court's outlook is shaped by society, the court's outlook is shaped by societal decay, the court's outlook is shaped by the customs currently in use — the court's outlook keeps changing from time to time, keep this in mind. What is the court's current outlook these days? Regarding investigation, regarding registration.

Now regarding the court's current outlook, the court's view at the current time — because the court's view is shaped by society, the court's view is shaped by societal decay, the court's view is shaped by the customs currently in practice — the court's view keeps changing from time to time, keep this in mind. What is the court's current view these days regarding investigation, regarding the registration of the FIR? The court says: an incident occurred, an offence was committed, a murder took place. Now, socially, everyone knows that a murder occurred at six in the evening, the FIR is being registered — immediately at 6:45 in the evening the FIR and post-mortem are done the next morning at ten o'clock. The court says that according to the FIR, an incident that occurred at six was recorded at 6:45 — the hospital papers say the dead body was received at seven, that evening, one or two hours after the incident — now the post-mortem happens the next day at ten. The court says, what is this?

Because everyone knows that when a murder happens, the daily register (roznamcha) is held back — it's held back until this 302 case is registered, the roznamcha is held. Nothing gets entered into the roznamcha; the SHO calls all the complainants, calls the entire complainant party, tells everyone to put their heads together — who to include, who not to include, the incident gets forgotten, they forget the actual incident, they send someone running: go check at the hospital where he was hit — he comes back and reports, yes, his back was hit, his chest was hit, his leg was hit, his arm was hit — he brings back all that detail, and then, in light of it, they sit down together.

Oh, and by the way, Ashraf sold his land to someone else, not to me — keep that in — Ashraf's brother is also a lawyer, he'll cause trouble, keep him in too — Maida didn't cut my hair on my instructions — keep him in too — they entirely fabricate the incident, and the truth gets hidden behind curtains — how he died, who killed him, it all gets hidden behind curtains, and later the courts get blamed — that the courts let people off. When you don't state the truth, of course the person will be let off — an innocent person cannot be sent to the gallows. In the world of law it's a common maxim that ten thousand guilty men may have to be let go to spare one innocent one — but it can't be that ten thousand men are let go to spare one innocent one, and also that, in punishing ten thousand innocent men, one innocent man also gets punished — that's not how it works.

Now the courts' view is that this fifteen-hour delay — from seven until the next day's ten o'clock — this fifteen-hour delay in registering the FIR, its cause is the post-mortem report, because the post-mortem report records when the dead body was received — seven o'clock — now when were the police papers received — the next morning at nine — when all these matters — this is society, courts are not fictional beings — courts too are made up of flesh-and-blood human beings raised in this same society, sitting as judges — they too practised law, handled cases, and then became judges — they too know what's going on in society — there's great criticism that, sir, people are let off on this technical point — well, on this technical point, let me ask you one thing — a building with no foundation at all — can a structure stand without foundations? You have a plan to build a ten-storey building, but there's no foundation for it — you'll reach the third floor and the building will come crashing down, because it has no foundation at all.

The foundation you're going to build — if it has no reality to it at all, then you have to bear the consequences. Nowadays courts hold the view that if there's a delay, without reason, between the post-mortem and the FIR, it means the FIR isn't true. Tell me honestly — if the case is true, A, B, C are sitting somewhere, X, Y, Z come armed and, having arrived, with pistols, weapons, daggers, knives, whatever it was, in their hands, kill A and flee the scene — how much time do you need to record this incident? Three people were sitting on a platform in a street; from the east, three people entered the street on a motorcycle, one got off, he fired at A, and then fled back the same way — if you have this FIR registered, and the two surviving witnesses of the incident — I claim that even fifty years later, if asked to describe this incident, they would describe it this way. Here we write out a two-and-a-half page account of the incident — we don't 'describe' it, we 'construct' it. Then the trial begins, evidence begins, and we've spent time on it — sir, this wasn't there, this was, this wasn't, this was — now how is he going to parrot it back like that, the witness, an ordinary person, cannot state a written script, because what was written isn't what happened — you didn't state what actually happened.

A criminal defence lawyer, keeping exactly these matters, this same sequence, in mind, blows the prosecution's evidence apart. The roznamcha is an important document, register number 19 is an important document, the FIR is an important document, the post-mortem report is a document — I'm talking about a murder case; if it's an injury case, the medical report is an important document. I keep being asked to talk about investigation, investigation — if I start giving you a three-hour lecture on it every day, I'd feel I've only told you 10% of it — matters differ in every case, but the bottom line is this: if you are innocent, you must provide all your evidence to prove your innocence, be it weak evidence or strong evidence, and if the investigating officer doesn't take it, get it made part of the record through the court — and if you are the complainant, and you are telling the truth, but the police are favouring the accused, then, as complainant, as mustaghees, you must employ all the legal tools available to you.

Now comes the matter of recoveries — the police's style is so clumsy, so clumsy, that for eighteen years, seeing these things, the police still haven't changed their style. Well, first of all — a person who committed a murder three months ago — is he going to keep the pistol lying around so that, three months later when he's arrested, he can pull it out and hand it over? The courts are now taking a dim view of this — recovery doesn't settle the matter anymore. So what does the policeman do? First of all, he casts doubt on the arrest itself — that old story that keeps recurring: a special informer gave information that the accused is standing at such-and-such spot; if raided he could be caught; on the informer's information we went to such-and-such spot, we grabbed him, and from his pocket, sir, a pistol was recovered, tucked in his waistband — sir, the pistol was recovered from his waistband.

Ask someone — how can a pistol fit into the waistband of a man wearing shalwar kameez? I've never seen it, in a full case where a pistol is involved, ever produced as case property bare — they always wrap the pistol in cloth and produce it, sir, this was recovered. Ask someone — how can a half-kilo, three-quarter-pound pistol sit in a shalwar waistband? It's beyond comprehension, and, funnier still, when they bring him in arrested, neither money comes out of his pocket, nor his ID card, nor his mobile phone — they just arrest him — and, funnier still, the day of his arrest isn't even mentioned in the roznamcha. That's why I say any criminal lawyer must read the roznamcha, must focus on the roznamcha.