Last year, the Supreme Court of India, while hearing a criminal appeal, took suo motu cognisance of certain deficiencies and inadequacies which occur during the course of criminal trials. As a result, it issued the necessary directions in In Re: To issue certain Guidelines regarding Inadequacies and Deficiencies in Criminal Trials vs The State of Andhra Pradesh (2021). These directions inter alia included presentation of site plan, inquest report and body sketches (in a post-mortem report) in a uniform manner, photographs and videographs of a post-mortem in certain cases, and separation of prosecution from the investigation. The High Courts and the State governments were, accordingly, asked to notify the draft “Rules of Criminal Practice, 2021” which all the States and the High Courts had agreed upon with minor variations, and make consequential amendments in their police and other manuals. The Guwahati High Court issued the essential notification and incorporated the necessary changes in January 2022.
Preparing a site sketch
The Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) mandates that the officer-in-charge of a police station shall, on receiving information about the commission of a cognisance offence, proceed to the spot (of the crime) in person to investigate the facts and circumstances of the case. The general practice (on reaching the spot) is to prepare a site sketch that show details of the crime scene and collect evidence which could connect the presence of the criminal. The Court has previously held that a site plan drawn on scale is admissible if the witnesses corroborate these statements of the draftsman that they showed him the places. The contents of the site map would not become admissible as evidence merely by its exhibition by the investigating officer.
