Court refuses permission to accused to inspect digital devices of 2 other co-accused

NEw new new delhi, A Delhi margaret court has rejected a plea allowing an accused individual to inspect the digital devices of ii other co-accused, saying such "attempt to conduct a parallel investigation" could not be allowed. Special Judge Dig Vinay Singh was hearing a matter regarding the excise policy-linked corruption case where four persons, namely two co-accused, Sameer Mahendru and Arun R Pillai, a witness and another person who was a third party, had objected to the accused Amandeep Singh Dhall being permitted to inspect their digital devices. In an order dated August 2, the court said although Dhall claimed that he would provide an undertaking that he would not present any argument against the four individuals after inspecting their devices, his argument did not inspire confidence. "The reason accused 9 inspects others' devices is to find something that he can use to build his defence. If he is not planning to use any content from those devices, then why does he need to see them? The purpose of inspecting the devices is to find evidence that can be used to support his defence, which poses a serious risk to accused 5 , accused 7 and others," the court said. If any incriminating material was found in their devices, appropriate action could be taken against them, it said. "Can this court ignore any such material relevant to the trial, when brought to the notice of this court by accused 9 or anyone else, which the CBI may have overlooked, in their devices? The answer has to be no," the judge said. He said it appeared that Dhall was "attempting to conduct a parallel investigation or inquiry to argue that the CBI did not thoroughly investigate or deliberately failed to collect all evidence or intentionally ignored many things" in the devices. "No such parallel investigation should be allowed by any accused, as this would otherwise lead to an endless cycle of such proceedings. After all, every accused in a criminal trial claims that he was prejudiced by an unfair investigation concerning him and by the omission of facts that may have favoured him," the court said. It said that in a criminal trial, if an accused believed that some strong defence existed, he would most likely know where that piece of material was and what it would be. "The courts have to be especially cautious when digital devices containing sensitive, private or personal data are examined. If certain parts of such digital content are unrelated to the prosecution's case, the person requesting inspection must clearly specify what is expected from the inspection. When such an inspection could violate privacy or third-party rights, it cannot be considered an unfettered right," the judge said. "Requesting inspection without a specific or justified reason or simply hoping to find something useful, amounts to a fishing expedition. Such a broad, unfocused search without clear limits or scope amounts to a roving inquiry. It not only wastes the court's time but also risks violating privacy rights and could amount to harassment or oppression of the device owners," he added. The court said that before an accused requested inspection of a digital device containing private or third-party data, specific and concrete relevance had to be provided. "When the CBI investigated the matter for a long time, it must be accepted prima facie that it thoroughly examined all these digital devices," the court said. "Since the CBI could not find anything related to the dispute in those devices, allowing a parallel inquiry would be equivalent to conducting a separate trial for each device, which could be extremely risky for a criminal court to undertake. No such pre-trial inquiry should be permitted," it added. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.