The Supreme Court ruled that ‘panchnamas’ (documents recording the proceedings of searches and seizures) would be deemed inadmissible in a court of law if they were prepared in a manner violative of Section 162 CrPC. Specifically, the Court raised alarm over the role played by witnesses in these proceedings and their failure to adequately disclose how objects were discovered during searches.
The court observed “Witnesses to the panchnamas and the seizures acted as mere attestors to the documents and did not disclose in their own words as to how these objects were discovered, i.e., at whose instance and how. Ergo, no lawful validity attaches to these proceedings recorded by the police in the context of collection of all this evidence.”