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 The Allahabad High Court has directed the office of the Advocate General for the state of Uttar Pradesh to only accept case diaries which are appended with certificates by the Investigating Officer that the complete original or true copy of the case diary is being produced. 

A single judge bench of Justice Vivek Agarwal affixing liability in case of defiance of the direction, ordered that, “In case it is found that incomplete case diary is accepted without endorsement of the IO, causing inconvenience to the court and wastage of precious time, then (the) office of Advocate General may be held responsible and consequences may follow.”

The directions have been issued in a case where a S.482 CrPC petition was filed by one Constable Ajeet Singh  accused under the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO Act), wherein he has claimed that he was at the place of his duty during the commission of the crime.

Singh submitted that the main ground to challenge the proceedings before the court was the corroboration of his alibi through information received by him under the Right to Information Act, 2005. The information revealed that he was on duty as a traffic police personnel (at the relevant time of the incident) and that his duty timings were from 3:00 pm to 10:00 pm at Ghaziabad. He was dispatched for duty at 2:00 pm.

However, challenging this contention, the advocate for the private respondent averred that as per the probe of the Investigating Officer, the location of the mobile number carried by the accused was found close to the place of the incident.

Thereafter, when asked to supply copy of the 'purcha' enclosed with the case diary, which contained the claim that the accused was near the place of the incident, the Government Advocate submitted that the complete case diary had not been sent to the office of Advocate General.

Following the argument, the Court requested the Addl. Advocate General to look into the matter and directed the him to communicate the copy of the order to all the Superintendents of Police for its immediate compliance with effect from Aug 16, 2021.

[Edited by Shreya Agarwal]

(Case Title: Constable Ajeet Singh vs. State of UP and Ors.)