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Showing contexts for: Software Source code in Amarjeet @ Kaluwa vs State Of U.P . And Another on 13 November, 2019Matching Fragments
8. Since the dispute in the present matter involves only legal position to be taken into consideration, hence without issuing any notice to the opposite party no. 2, this application is being disposed of on merits.
9. I would like to rely on interpretation of section 207 Cr.PC by Hon'ble Apex Court in Tarun Tyagi vs. Central Bureau of Investigation, (2017) 4 SCC 490. In this case the facts were that the appellant was said to have stolen "source Code" of a software known as "Quick Recovery" developed by the complainant's company and thereafter put it for sale on the website of the appellant company under the name "Prodatadoctor". A case was registered under section 66 of the Information Technology act 2000 and sections 63 and 63-B read with section 14(b)(ii) of t he Copyright Act, 1957. CBI took up the investigation and seized certain documents and material from the office/residential premises of the appellant after conducting search and seizure. The appellant moved an application seeking release of the seized property which was rejected by the trial court, subsequently in this case charge-sheet was submitted and cognizance was taken. The appellant preferred an application under sections 207/238 Cr.P.C. seeking supply of deficient copies of documents, such as hard disk relied upon by the prosecution. The Magistrate had rejected the application against which an application u/s 482 Cr.P/C was preferred before the High Court, which too dismissed the said application and hence the matter came before the Apex Court. The Hon'ble Apex Court has mentioned in a nutshell, along with charge-sheet filed by the CBI, various documents were enclosed which included hard disk as well, that was seized from office of appellant. Though, copies of all other documents were supplied to appellant but he was not given aforesaid three disks, therefore, he wanted copies of these disks to be provided. It was held that in case like this, at the time of trial, attempt on the part of the prosecution would be to show that the seized material, which contained source code, is the property of the complainant. On the other hand, the appellant will try to demonstrate otherwise and his attempt would be to show that the source code contained in those CDs was different from the source code of the complainant and the seized material contained the source code developed by the appellant. It is but obvious that in order to prove his defence, copies of seized CDs need to be supplied to the appellant. The right to get such copies is statutorily recognized under section 207 Cr.P.C. which is the hallmark of a fair trial, that every document relied upon by prosecution has to be supplied to defence/accused at the time of supply of charge-sheet to enable such accused to demonstrate that no case is made out against him and also to enable him to prepare his cross-examination and defence strategy. There is no quarrel up to this point even by prosecution. The only apprehension of the prosecution is that if the documents are supplied at this stage, the appellant may misuse the same. The apprehension of the prosecution is based on the opinion of the Government Examiner (Expert) who has opined that if the cloned copy of the hard disk was required, then the same could be prepared by the laboratory on supply of new hard disk of 500 GB but such cloned copy could not be write protected, meaning thereby that it cannot be changed or removed by a user. Therefore, a direction was issued by Hon'ble Apex Court that in order to comply with the provisions of section 207 of the Code hard disks be supplied to the appellant subject to following conditions: