J.Mathiyalagan Vs The Deputy Superintendent of Police

PRAYER : Criminal Original Petition filed under Section 482 of Criminal Procedure Code, pleased to set aside the order passed in Crl.M.P.No.05 of 2025 in C.C.No.2732 of 2024 dated 25.04.2025 by the XI Metropolitan Magistrate Court at saidapet by allowing the present Criminal Original Petition.

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For Petitioner : Mr.MA.P.Thangavel For Respondent : Dr.C.E.Pratap Government Advocate (Criminal Side)

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O R D E R

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The Criminal Original Petition is filed challenging the order passed in

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Crl.O.P.No.16399 of 2025

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Crl.M.P.No.5 of 2025 in C.C.No.2732 of 2024.

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2.Heard Mr.Thangavel, the learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr.C.E.Prathap, the learned Government Advocate (Criminal side) for the respondent.

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3.Mr.Thangavel, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner taking this Court through the prayer made in the Crl.M.P.No.5 of 2025 would submit that the application was filed to recall P.W.14 for the purpose of further cross examination. He would submit that in this case, the electronic evidence that is submitted on behalf of the prosecution becomes the crucial evidence. The allegation in this case is that the petitioner/accused is alleged to have stealthily taken photographs of the victim and uploaded on the internet and shared the same through e-mail. The purpose of further cross examination is categorically mentioned in paragraph No.6 regarding the tampering of the files that is presented to the Court. One opportunity has to be granted to the petitioner. As a matter of fact, the cross examination has to be made relating to Cyber Crime Manual. Therefore, one opportunity should be given to the petitioner.

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4.He would further submit that even though the case is pending for long,

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the petitioner/accused is not the reason for the same and it was only on account of the repeated transfer of cases from one Court to another. Further taking this Court to the list of dates would submit that the petitioner never prolonged the issue and was conducting the case duly and diligently. When an opportunity especially relating to the technical nature of the case is requested, it should be granted to the petitioner.

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5.Per contra, the learned Government Advocate (Criminal side) would

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submit that this occurrence is of the year 2007. The trial has so long been prolonged. The allegation is that the petitioner stealthily took the photograph of the victim while taking bath and thereafter uploaded the same from his personal computer and sent it via e-mail to the victim's husband and brother. It is also seen that certain obscene messages were also embossed on it. The trial is going on and PW14 is the expert witness who has been cross examined in detail even with reference to the purposes that are now mentioned in the application. At the fag end of the case, the application is now filed only to protract proceedings and there is no ground to recall P.W.14.

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6.I have considered the rival submissions made on either side and perused

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the material records of the case.

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7.Even agreeing with the learned counsel for the petitioner that de-hors the duration of the pendency, if accused had to be given an opportunity in respect of a matter to effectively defend himself, Courts will normally lean in favour of recalling the prosecution witnesses. Viewing from that angle, the purpose of further cross examination that is mentioned in the application filed by the petitioner is enumerated in paragraph 6 which is extracted hereunder for ready reference:-

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6.The petitioner further submits that, the PW-14, in his report he stated that the files namely "pagefile.sys", "unallocated clusters", "usbprint.inf", "wst_czec.fon" contains the details of the email through which the alleged nude photographs was sent. It is to believe that the above-mentioned file names from the forensic report is fabricated and will not look like the way it was submitted to this Hon'ble Court. It is also needed to be clarified from the Forensic expert regarding the "Hash values" and the verification of "hash values" which has been mentioned in his report. Hence, the accused must disprove the facts that the above articles were not used for the commission of crime as alleged by prosecution and to prove that

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evidence had been fabricated by putting questions to him. Hence, this Hon'ble court may be pleased to recall PW-14 for cross examination."

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8.The entire cross examination of P.W.14 is filed along with the papers and

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it runs about nine pages. In the cross examination, several questions have been made in detail about hash value and also the veracity of the electronic documents. The relevant portions are extracted hereunder for ready reference:-

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" Do you have any idea HASH VALUE? It is alpha numeric uppercase, lowercase, digit number generated by Algorithms to provide authenticity. For Alpha numeric 32 digits are there for a MD file? Yes, If the HASH ALGORITHM used is MD FILE then it can generate 32 digits. In Ex.P25, can you say how many digits are there in the HASH? 32 digits. All the reports which was given by you contains only 32 digits as HASH VALUE? Yes. All the HASH VALUE given in Ex.P25 were generated by you at your office? Yes, the same has been generated automatically by the software used for the forensic examination based on the content of digital data available in the digital storage medium. In this case, the HASH VALUE were given from the test conducted by your lab on Q1 (MO1)? Yes. The purpose of giving HASH VALUE to a Material Object to ensure that the digital evidence is not tampered? Yes. In the letter Ex.P24, is there any HASH VALUE given by the office

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while seizing the objects MO1 to MO5? No, in the forwarding letter no HASH VALUES were mentioned. If there is an HASH VALUE in the seizure mahazar and in the forwarding letter sent to your office and if they tallied with the HASH VALUE of your office then, it can be certainly said that, the Material Objects were not tampered? Yes. All the photographs extracted in Ex.P25, are taken from the Hard Disk (Q1)?

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The panchanama should be prepared for the HASH VALUE for each of the hard disk image? I have not prepared any panchanama and no such practice is followed. In your report, you've mentioned the time taken for obtaining the HASH VALUE for both the acquisition HASH and verification HASH? I've not mentioned. At page No. 267, inner page 6 you've mentioned Q1/C/PAGE5.sys and you've also at page no. 279 you've also mentioned the file name as USBPRINT.INF, at page No.287 you've mentioned as Q1/C/UNALLOCATED CLUSTERS and at page No.285, inner page 15 you've mentioned Q1/C/windows/fonts/wst_czec.fon? Yes. What is the purpose for adopting the above methods for analysing Q1? The forensic analyst will analyse active files, deleted files, unallocated clusters, Slack space and system artifacts for retrieving the evidence from the suspected digital evidence storage media. Why you've adopted "PAGE FILE.SYS" for analysing? As I mentioned above, Q1 contains microsoft operating system which has pagefile.sys as system file, the same was used. Ex.P25 inner page 6 and page 267

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does it contains the report of the analysis made by you using pagefile.sys? Yes. It is the hard copy printout of outcome of analysis of pagefile.sys. Is the page 6 in Ex.P25 is the true extract? Yes. Whether it can be read through the naked eye or human mind? It cannot be. What was the procedure you adopted to read the file and whether you've stated in your report? I've not mentioned about the procedure but the tool I've used has already an inbuilt utility for analysing pagefile.sys. What is the tool used? The tool I've used is Encase and the same I've mentioned at the page No. 1 of my report. I put it to you that, the images in pagefile.sys can never be read or accessed by user including administrator? It is not correct. Can you demonstrate that pagefile.sys that doesn't generate alphabetic words but only signs which are un-understandable by human brain? That cannot be done here, but through forensic tools data can be retrieved."

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9.Even more detailed questions are also made. The very purpose of filing an application for recalling the witness can only for availing the opportunity and cannot be for re-doing the exercise by way of action replay by further reframing the questions or for better cross examining from one more or different perspective/point of view. Since the opportunity of cross examination already been given and is availed by the accused and the expert witness having been cross

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examined in detail including all technical details I do not see one more opportunity needs to be given to the petitioner. The trial Court has rightly rejected the application. Accordingly, finding no merits, this Criminal Original Petition is dismissed. Consequently, connected miscellaneous petition is closed.

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05.06.2025

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ep

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Neutral citation : Yes/No

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To

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