Prosecution May Produce Documents Omitted From Charge‑Sheet If Omission Was Inadvertent, Supreme Court Holds

A bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Augustine George Masih heard appeals by an accused against orders permitting the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to place two seized Compact Discs (CDs) on the trial record after the filing of the chargesheet. The narrow issue related to whether documents or materials available to the prosecution at the time of filing the chargesheet could be produced later under Section 173 CrPC, and whether the Special Court and the Delhi High Court erred in permitting the late production of the CDs and related CFSL report and 65B certificate.

The Court dismissed the appeals and upheld the High Court’s decision allowing the prosecution to produce the CDs that had been referred to in the supplementary chargesheet but inadvertently not produced earlier. The Court relied on settled precedents that treated the obligation to produce documents at the time of filing the chargesheet as directory rather than absolute, permitting subsequent production where omission was inadvertent and no prejudice was caused to the accused. The Court, in its reasoning, observed: “7. From the aforesaid sub‑sections, it is apparent that normally, the investigating officer is required to produce all the relevant documents at the time of submitting the charge‑sheet. At the same time, as there is no specific prohibition, it cannot be held that the additional documents cannot be produced subsequently. If some mistake is committed in not producing the relevant documents at the time of submitting the report or the charge‑sheet, it is always open to the investigating officer to produce the same with the permission of the court. In our view, considering the preliminary stage of prosecution and the context in which the police officer is required to forward to the Magistrate all the documents or the relevant extracts thereof on which the prosecution proposes to rely, the word “shall” used in sub‑section (5) cannot be interpreted as mandatory, but as directory. Normally, the documents gathered during the investigation upon which the prosecution wants to rely are required to be forwarded to the Magistrate, but if there is some omission, it would not mean that the remaining documents cannot be produced subsequently. Analogous provision under Section 173(4) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 was considered by this Court in Narayan Rao v. State of A.P. [AIR 1957 SC 737 : 1958 SCR 283 : 1957 Cri LJ 1320] (SCR at p. 293) and it was held that the word “shall” occurring in sub‑section (4) of Section 173 and sub‑section (3) of Section 207‑A is not mandatory but only directory. Further, the scheme of sub‑section (8) of Section 173 also makes it abundantly clear that even after the charge‑sheet is submitted, further investigation, if called for, is not precluded. If further investigation is not precluded then there is no question of not permitting the prosecution to produce additional documents which were gathered prior to or subsequent to the investigation. In such cases, there cannot be any prejudice to the accused. Hence, the impugned order passed by the Special Court cannot be sustained.” The Court also noted that “the issue of the authenticity of the CDs is kept open” and that “the issue regarding the validity of the certificate under Section 65B of the Evidence Act is also left open.”

Background The appeals arose from criminal proceedings in which two sealed CDs, containing intercepted call records and sent to the CFSL for analysis, were seized on 4 and 10 May 2013. The CFSL report was received on 25 October 2013 and a supplementary chargesheet was filed thereafter; however, the physical CDs were not placed on record at that time. During trial the prosecution sought to play the CDs; the accused objected on the ground that the CDs had not been filed or supplied to the defence. The Special Judge initially permitted production of the CDs; the Delhi High Court set aside earlier orders and directed a fresh decision, but ultimately dismissed a quashing petition and upheld production of the CDs, relying on this Court’s precedent in CBI v. R.S. Pai and subsequent authorities.

Counsel for the appellant argued that material available to the prosecution before filing the chargesheet could not be treated as part of “further investigation” under Section 173(8) CrPC and relied on recent two‑judge authority emphasising that further investigation must uncover new material. The CBI contended that the CDs had been seized and sent for CFSL analysis before the first chargesheet, the CFSL report arrived later and the supplementary chargesheet referred to the CDs, and that the physical omission to produce the CDs was inadvertent. The Supreme Court applied the three‑Judge precedents in R.S. Pai and Arjun Panditrao Khotkar, held that the dossier and CFSL report were referred to in the supplementary chargesheet and that an omission to produce the CDs did not bar their later production with the court’s permission. The Court left open factual questions at trial, including whether the produced CDs were the same as those seized and the validity/authenticity of the Section 65B certificate, and permitted the appellant to recall prosecution witnesses limitedly for cross‑examination on the CDs. Subject to those clarifications, the appeals were dismissed.

Case Details: Case No.: Criminal Appeal Nos.4718‑4719 of 2024 (2025 INSC 776) Case Title: Sameer Sandhir v. Central Bureau of Investigation Appearances: For the Petitioner(s): Learned Senior Counsel for appellant (name not specified in judgment) For the Respondent(s): Additional Solicitor General for the CBI (name not specified in judgment)