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(3) Neither the accused nor his agents shall be entitled to call for such diaries, nor shall he or they be entitled to see them merely because they are referred to by the Court; but, if they are used by the police officer who made them to refresh his memory, or if the Court uses them for the purpose of contradicting such police officer, the provisions of section 161 or section 145, as the case may be, of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, shall apply.

17. Section 172 of the Code of Criminal Procedure also empowers that every criminal Court to send for the case diary of a case, which is under enquiry or trial, and make use of such diary, not as evidence in the case, but to aid the Court in such inquiry or trial.

18. What is extremely important to note is that according to sub-Section (3) of Section 172 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, neither the accused nor his agents shall be entitled to call for case diary nor shall he or they be entitled to see the case diary merely because the case diary is referred to by the Court; but, if the case diary is used by a police officer, to refresh his memory or if the Court uses the case diary for the purpose of contradicting such police officer, the provisions of Section 161 or Section 145, as the case may be, of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, shall apply.

19. From a careful reading of the scheme of the Code of Criminal Procedure relating to the case diary, it becomes abundantly clear that an accused or his agent is not entitled to call for the case diary nor shall he or his agent be entitled to see the contents of the case diary even if they are referred to by the Court except when the contents are used by a police officer to refresh his memory or if the Court uses the contents of the case diary for the purpose of contradicting the police officer.

20. In the present case, providing of certified copies of the confessional statements of the accused to the petitioner is wholly illegal and such a practice has been seriously resented by the Supreme Court in Sidharth and others v. State of Bihar, [AIR 2005 SC 4352], which arose out of a case in the State of Bihar, wherein the Supreme Court, having noticed that the entire case diary, maintained by the police, had been made available to the accused, pointed out that under Section 172 of the Criminal Procedure Code, every police officer, making an investigation, has to record his proceedings in a diary setting forth the time at which the information reached him, the time at which he began and closed his investigation, the place or places visited by him and a statement of the circumstances ascertained through his investigation and it is specifically provided in Sub-clause (3) of Section 172 that neither the accused nor his agents shall be entitled to call for such diaries nor shall he or they be entitled to see the contents of the case diary merely because the case diary is referred to by the Court, but if they are used by a police officer, who made the case diary to refresh his memory, or if the Court uses the case diary for the purpose of contradicting such a police officer, the provisions of Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure or the provisions of Section 145 of the Evidence Act, 1872, shall be complied with.