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2. The relevant facts, which may be noticed for answering these petitions are that on the fateful date of 13.6.1997, a devastating fire occurred at Uphaar Theatres, New Delhi, which took a toll of 59 human lives, including women and children, besides leaving a large number of persons injured. A case RC 3(S)/97/SIC.IV/CBI/ND under Sections 304/304A/337/338/36 IPC and Section 14 of the Cinematograph Act was registered and investigation taken up by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). After completion of investigation, CBI submitted a charge-sheet against several accused persons, including accused-Mr.Sushil Ansal, Mr.Gopal Ansal and Mr.H.S.Panwar, the respondents herein. The trial against the accused persons was proceeded with and charges were ordered to be framed against the accused persons. Aggrieved by the said order of the learned trial court framing the charge, the accused persons-Mr.Sushil Ansal and others challenged the said order by way of Criminal Revision Petitions No. 238/01 and 175/01 before this Court, but without success. Thereafter, the trial proceed further and when in January, 2003 the trial of the accused persons was at a sufficiently advanced stage, the Public Prosecutor, in charge of the prosecution, noticed that several important documents which were seized by the investigating agency during the course of investigation and which were filed along with the charge-sheet and which formed part of the judicial record, were missing from the record of the case while some other documents had been tampered with and/or mutilated by tearing of a portion of the document(s) or by sprinkling ink etc. so as to deface the document(s). Vide an application dated 13.1.2003, the learned Public Prosecutor brought the factum of missing/tampering of the documents to the notice of the learned Trial Court, who in turn appears to have apprised the learned District and Sessions Judge, Delhi about the said position. Soon thereafter on 20.1.2003 the learned Public Prosecutor sought the permission of the learned trial court to lead secondary evidence in respect of the missing documents and the documents which had been tampered with in the above manner, which prayer of the prosecution was allowed by the trial court and the prosecution was permitted to lead secondary evidence in regard to those missing and tampered with documents.

12. On the strength of the said judgment, Mr.Tulsi, learned senior counsel representing the petitioners has emphatically urged that there exit enough circumstances on record which would unambiguously point out that it were the three respondents/accused persons who by themselves or in connivance with some others were instrumental in the removal, tempering or mutilation of several of the documents with a view to screen themselves or being linked as the persons who could be held directly or indirectly responsible for the commission of various acts of commission and omission holding them liable for the offence for which they have been charged. In this regard, he and Mr.Malhotra, learned Additional Solicitor General, have referred to in detail about the nature, relevance and importance of the said documents which were found missing/tampered with or mutilated/defaced. The documents are as below:

15. Coming to the second petition Crl.M.2229/2006. It is true that on the request of the prosecuting agency, the missing/tampered documents were re- constructed and the prosecution was allowed and has led secondary evidence in regard to those documents. It is also true that the factum of missing/tampering of the judicial record having been brought to the notice of the District and Sessions Judge, who got a fact-finding inquiry conducted through Ms.Mamta Sengal, learned Additional Sessions Judge, New Delhi, the Presiding Officer of the trial court. The fact-finding Officer clearly found that Mr.Dinesh Chander Sharma was the person responsible for missing of documents/tearing of documents as well as sprinkling of ink on some of the documents. Based on the said fact- finding report, the learned Additional Sessions Judge instituted a disciplinary inquiry against Mr.Dinesh Chander Sharma in terms of the provisions of Rule 14 of the Central Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1965 for imposition of penalty and appointed Mr.S.C.Malik as the Inquiry Officer to deal with the delinquent official, Mr.Dinesh Chander Sharma, Ahlmad. The Inquiry Officer vide his order dated 30.4.2004 unambiguously concluded that the delinquent official-Mr.Dinesh Chander Sharma had committed the act of high carelessness and negligence amounting to serious mis-conduct on his part resulting in loss of documents of one of the most important cases of CBI of the city i.e. Uphaar tragedy cases as he failed to preserve the judicial file in safe and sound condition. He held him guilty and recommended for strict Page 1935 disciplinary action for imposition of major penalty on him. On the said inquiry report, the District and Sessions Judge, vide an order dated 25.6.2004, passed the order of imposition of penalty of dismissal from service upon delinquent Mr.Dinesh Chander Sharma by observing as under:

18. Mr.Altaf Ahmad, learned senior counsel submitted that powers under Section 340 CrPC should not be exercised unless the Court is of the opinion that it is expedient in the interest of justice to make a complaint and the present case is not which warrants the exercise of such power because despite the tampering of the documents, the purity of the trial was maintained and the case was not adversely affected because secondary evidence has been led in regard to the missing/tampered documents. On the face of the peculiarity of the facts and circumstances of the present case, as noted above in detail, acceptance of such a proposition would amount to over-simplifying the matter and turning a blind eye to the commission of criminal offence(s). The facts and circumstances in which large number of documents were removed from the record and tampered with would indicate that it must be the deliberate act of some persons who had some oblique motive for doing so. Who are those persons persons who were responsible for committing such flagrant acts with the oblique motive, can only be found out after a full-fledged inquiry/investigation.