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Criminal Appeal No. 1393, 1451 of 2008. Case: R.K. Anand and I.U. Khan Vs Delhi High Court. Supreme Court (India)

Judgment Cited in 66 Precedent Map Related
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Case NumberCriminal Appeal No. 1393, 1451 of 2008
JudgesB.N. Agrawal, G.S. Singhvi and Aftab Alam, JJ.
IssueContempt of Courts Act - Sections 2(c), 19(1); Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) - Sections 161, 164, 313, 311
CitationJT 2009 (10) SC 1 , 2009 (10) SCALE 164 , (2009) 8 SCC 106
Judgement DateJuly 29, 2009
CourtSupreme Court (India)

Judgment:

Aftab Alam, J.

  1. The present is a fall out from a criminal trial arising from a hit and run accident on a cold winter morning in Delhi in which a car travelling at reckless speed crashed through a police check post and crushed to death six people, including three policemen. Facing the trial, as the main accused, was a young person called Sanjeev Nanda coming from a very wealthy business family. According to the prosecution, the accident was caused by Sanjeev Nanda who, in an inebriated state, was driving a black BMW car at very high speed. The trial, commonly called as the BMW case, was meandering endlessly even after eight years of the accident and in the year 2007, it was not proceeding very satisfactorily at all from the point of view of the prosecution. The status of the main accused coupled with the flip flop of the prosecution witnesses evoked considerable media attention and public interest. To the people who watch TV and read newspapers it was yet another case that was destined to end up in a fiasco. It was in this background that a well known English language news channel called New Delhi Television (NDTV) telecast a programme on May 30, 2007 in which one Sunil Kulkarni was shown meeting with IU Khan, the Special Public Prosecutor and RK Anand, the Senior Defence Counsel (and two others) and negotiating for his sell out in favour of the defence for a very high price. Kulkarni was at one time considered the most valuable witness for the prosecution but afterwards, at an early stage in the trial, he was dropped by the prosecution as one of its witnesses. Nearly eight years later, the trial court had summoned him to appear and give his testimony as a court witness. The telecast came a few weeks after the court order and even as his evidence in the trial was going on. According to NDTV, the programme was based on a clandestine operation carried out by means of a concealed camera with Kulkarni acting as the mole. What appeared in the telecast was outrageous and tended to confirm the cynical but widely held belief that in this country the rich and the mighty enjoyed some kind of corrupt and extra-constitutional immunity that put them beyond the reach of the criminal justice system. Shocked by the programme the Delhi High Court suo moto initiated a proceeding (Writ Petition (Criminal) No.796 of 2007). It called for from the news channel all the materials on which the telecast was based and after examining those materials issued show cause notices to RK Anand, IU Khan and Bhagwan Sharma, an associate advocate with RK Anand why they should not be convicted and punished for committing criminal contempt of court as defined under section 2 (c) of the Contempt of Courts Act. (In the sting operations there was another person called Lovely who was apparently sent to meet Kulkarni as an emissary of RK Anand. But he died in a freak accident even before the stage of issuance of notice in the proceeding before the High Court). On considering their show cause and after hearing the parties the High Court expressed its displeasure over the role of Bhagwan Sharma but acquitted him of the charge of contempt of court. As regards RK Anand and IU Khan, however, the High Court found and held that their acts squarely fell within the definition of contempt under clauses (ii) and (iii) of section 2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act. It, accordingly, held them guilty of committing contempt of Court vide judgment and order dated August 21, 2008 and in exercise of power under Article 215 of the Constitution of India prohibited them, by way of punishment, from appearing in the Delhi High Court and the courts subordinate to it for a period of four months from the date of the judgment. It, however, left them free to carry on their other professional work, e. g., consultations, advises, conferences, opinion etc'. It also held that RK Anand and IU Khan had forfeited their right to be designated as Senior Advocates and recommended to the Full Court to divest them of the honour. In addition to this the High Court also sentenced them to fine of rupees two thousand each.

  2. These two appeals by RK Anand and IU Khan respectively are filed under section 19 (1) of the Contempt of Courts Act against the judgment and order passed by the Delhi High Court.

    The Context:

  3. Before proceeding to examine the different issues arising in the case it is necessary to first know the context in which the whole sordid episode took place. It will be, therefore, useful to put together the basic facts and circumstances of the case at one place. The occurance in which six people lost their lives was reconstructed by the prosecution on the basis of police investigation as follows:

    The crime, the Police investigation and proceedings before the Trial court:

  4. On January 10, 1999 at about half past four in the morning a speeding vehicle crashed through a police check-post on one of the Delhi roads and drove away leaving behind six people dead or dying. As the speeding car hit the group of persons standing on the road some were thrown away but two or three persons landed on the car's bonnet and rolled down to the ground under it.

    The car, however, did not stop. It moved on dragging along the persons who were caught in its underside. It halted only after the driver lost control and going down a distance of 200-300 feet hit the road divider. At this point the occupants came down from the car to inspect the scene. They looked at the front and the rear of the car and would not have failed to notice the persons caught under the car who were still crying for help and who perhaps might have been saved if they were taken out even at that stage. But the anxiety of the car's occupants to leave the accident site without delay seemed to override all other considerations. They got back into the car, reversed it and drove on. The car went on dragging the unfortunate victims trapped under it to certain and ghastly death and left behind at the accident site dismembered limbs and dead bodies of men.

  5. The police investigation brought to light that the accident was caused by a black BMW car which was being driven by Sanjeev Nanda. He was returning from a late night party, under the influence of liquor, along with some friend(s).

  6. Five days after the accident, on January 15, 1999 one Sunil Kulkarni contacted the Joint Commissioner of Police, Delhi, and claimed to be an eye witness to the occurrence. According to his story, at the time of the accident he was passing through the spot, on foot, on his way to the Nizamuddin Railway Station for catching a train for Bhopal. He described the accident in considerable detail and stated that at the sight of so many people being mowed down by the car he got completely unnerved. He proceeded for the railway station and on reaching there tried to ring up the police or the emergency number 100 but was unable to get through. He finally went to Bhopal and on coming back to Delhi, being bitten by conscience, he contacted the police. What was of significance in Kulkarni's statement is that the accident was caused by a car and when it stopped after hitting the people a man alighted from the driving seat and examined the front and rear of the car. Then, another person got down from the passenger seat called the other, "Sanjeev", and urged that they should go. On the same day his statement was recorded by the police under section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The following day he was shown Nanda's BMW car at Lodhi Colony Police Station and he identified it as the one that had caused the accident. On January 21, 1999 Kulkarni's statement was recorded before a magistrate under section 164 of CrPC. Before the magistrate, in regard to the accident, he substantially reiterated the statement made before the police, lacing it up with details about his stay in Delhi from January 7 and his movements on the evening before the accident. In the statement before the magistrate the manner of identification of Sanjeev Nanda was also the same with the addition that after the accident when the car moved again the person on the driving seat was trying to look for the way by craning out his head out of the broken glass window and thus he was able to see him from a distance of no more than three and a half feet when the car passed by his side. The police wanted to settle the question of the driver's identification by having Kulkarni identify Sanjeev Nanda in a test identification parade but Sanjeev Nanda refused to take part in any identification parade. Then, on March 31, 1999 when Sanjeev Nanda was produced in court Kulkarni also happened to be there. He identified him to the investigating officer as the driver of the car causing accident.

  7. Kulkarni's arrival on the scene as an eye witness of the tragic accident got wide publicity and he was generally acclaimed as a champion of the public cause. He must have appeared to the police too as godsend but soon there were reasons for the police to look at him completely differently. He had given as his address a place in Mumbai. A summons issued by the trial court on the Mumbai address given by him returned unserved. The report dated August 30, 1999 on the summons disclosed that he had given a wrong address and his actual address was not known to anyone. It also stated that he was a petty fraudster who had defrauded several people in different ways. The report concluded by saying that he seemed to be a person of shady character.

  8. At the same time Kulkarni also turned around. On August 31, 1999 a Habeas Corpus petition (Writ Petition (Crl) No.846/99) was filed in the Delhi High Court making the allegation that he was being held by the Delhi Police in wrongful confinement. On the following day (September 1, 1999) when the writ petition was taken up the allegations were denied on behalf of the police. Moreover, Kulkarni was personally present in...

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1 firm's commentaries
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