nThe Supreme Court has lauded a convenience note submitted by the Chhattisgarh government lawyer in a criminal case and said it is an illustration of how a case be presented on behalf of a state.
Hearing a Special Leave petition (SLP), a triple bench of justices Uday Umesh Lalit, Vineet Saran and S. Ravindra Bhat said: “In the end, we must observe that the presentation made by Sumeer Sodhi in the note extracted above is an illustration of how a case can be presented on behalf of the State.”
The judges said: “We may suggest that the said note may be taken as the standard format by all the learned counsel appearing for various state governments in this court.
“The registry may circulate copies of this Order to all the learned Standing Counsel for the States," the court said.
The Standing Counsel for Chhattisgarh, Sameer Sodhi, submitted the convenience note in tabular form giving a brief summary of the entire case, details of accused, FIRs, deposition of witnesses and legal submissions on behalf of the state government.
“With the assistance of the learned counsel, we have gone through the record and are satisfied that the role attributed to the present appellants was not in any way different from that attributed to the other four acquitted accused,” the bench said.
The court allowed the appeal and set aside the conviction besides acquitting the three accused.
The order came while hearing an appeal filed against the Chhattisgarh High Court order confirming the conviction and sentence including life imprisonment awarded to 16 accused in a murder that took place in 1997. The apex court had given the verdict earlier this week.