Ahmedabad: In an important judgment, the Gujarat high court ordered the trial court to once again hear discharge applications filed by the accused persons in the Khyati Hospital PM-JAY case. The trial court had earlier rejected the discharge pleas because they were filed beyond the stipulated 60-day period after the chargesheets were sent for the trial.While ordering a fresh hearing of discharge pleas filed by the hospital director, non-executive directors and CEO – Kartik Patel, Rajshree Kothari, Sanjay Patolia and Rahul Jain, Justice P M Raval said, “Criminal jurisprudence must reconcile expeditious trial with fairness. A rigid and technical approach in the present facts would defeat substantial justice.”The accused in this case approached the high court after the trial court rejected their discharge pleas and refused to condone the delay in filing those applications. The accused submitted that they were supplied certain documents subsequently, which delayed the filing of their discharge applications. The high court was satisfied with the reason, and it said, “The learned sessions judge erred in refusing to condone the delay and in entering into the merits at the stage of condonation.”The high court directed the trial court “to decide the discharge applications afresh on merits after ensuring that all documents sought to be relied upon by the prosecution are duly furnished to the accused, and after affording full opportunity of hearing to both sides”. The HC also ruled, “An accused may prefer an application for discharge within the 60-day period ordinarily, but, beyond 60 days, does not extinguish his right to seek discharge where delay is satisfactorily explained.“The HC clarified that the subsequent supply of certain additional documents to the accused by the prosecution does not render the committal proceedings void; “however, fairness requires that discharge applications be considered only after complete supply of materials relied upon by the prosecution”.
