The Bombay high court finding itself in a piquant situation today sought a reply from the police whether a retrial could be held in a murder case given that the records of the original proceedings having been destroyed.
Akhilesh Kumar, alias Mithun Misra, was convicted in a murder case and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998 by Mumbai sessions court. He filed appeal in the high court challenging the sessions court judgement but only in 2005.
His defence is that he was not aware that he could file an appeal. The appeal came up for hearing before High Court in 2008, and it found that there were no records available of the case.
As a rule, sessions court records are destroyed five years after a ruling, if no appeal has been filed, said advocate Indrayani Koparkar, Kumar's lawyer. The sessions court also told the High Court that reconstructing the trial records would not be possible.
So the division bench of Justices Ranjana Desai and Mrudula Bhatkar today sought reply from the public prosecutor as to whether a retrial was possible.
Earlier, another high court bench had recommended that soft copy of records be made before papers were destroyed. The Court today also sought reply from the Registrar (Judicial) as to whether this was feasible. Hearing has been adjourned for two weeks.
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