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6. An application Crl M No. 2229 of 2006 was also filed by AVUT under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure („CrPC‟) in Crl M (M) No.2380 of 2003 seeking a direction to the State to register a criminal case (FIR) against the accused for tampering with the documents forming part of the record of the trial court. It was stated that during the progress of the trial it was noticed by the learned Public Prosecutor (PP) that several important documents seized by the investigating agency during the course of investigation and filed along with the charge sheet were missing from the record of the case. Some other documents had been tampered with and/or mutilated or defaced by tearing off a portion or by staining with ink.

7. By an application dated 13th January 2003 the learned PP drew the attention of the trial court to the above fact. In turn the trial court apprised the learned District & Sessions Judge („D&SJ‟), Delhi. On 20 th January 2003 the learned PP sought permission from the trial court to lead secondary evidence in respect of the missing documents and the documents which had been tampered with in the above manner. This application was allowed by the trial court and the prosecution was permitted to lead secondary evidence with regard to the missing and tampered documents.

37. This Court finds that at the present stage the evidence does not have to be analysed in a great detail to find out if each of the Petitioners can be held to be guilty for the aforementioned offences. They were nine tampered/missing documents. Some of them show that Sushil Ansal was one of the persons actually managing the cinema as he was attending the meeting of the Board of Directors, operating bank accounts, and visiting the cinema regularly and issuing instructions to the staff. This Court had in its order dated 11th September 2001 while dismissing the revision petitions challenging the framing of charges noticed that Sushil Ansal had on 26 th June 1995 signed the cheque on behalf of GTPAPL and therefore, appeared to be involved in the affairs of the said company. It is this cheque which went missing and was later found on 10th June 2003 during the course of the trial. Two other cheques signed by Gopal Ansal went missing while one was found during the trial and the other remains untraced.

38. It cannot be said that there is not even a prima facie made out against any of the accused and that because none of the accused had anything to gain by documents going missing or being tampered, they should be discharged. This Court would hasten to add that irrespective of the result of the appeals petitioners‟ against the conviction pending before the Supreme Court, the offence of tampering with the judicial record by either causing documents to disappear or be mutilated or torn could be attracted and that event each of the accused would be liable to face trial for the said offence.