Belated evidence production may be refused when its source, custody, and authenticity remain unexplained.

The petitioner, the de facto complainant, alleged that the respondents assaulted her on 27 September 2020; a charge sheet was filed after investigation

During trial, an application was made to produce a video clip of the incident and medical prescriptions.

The trial court dismissed the application, and the petitioner sought to set aside that order under Section 528 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.

The High Court noted that the application was filed in 2024, about four years after the incident, and that the petitioner had not explained the documents’ custody, source, or authenticity.

1. Whether the trial court’s order dismissing the application to produce the video clip and medical prescriptions should be set aside

2. Whether the petitioner had established sufficient grounds for permitting production of those documents at that stage of the proceedings

The petition invoked Section 528 of the BNSS, 2023, concerning the High Court’s inherent powers.

The judgment also referred to the application having been filed under Section 262(2) of the BNSS

the Investigating Officer could, upon receiving and assessing the documents, file a further charge sheet under Section 173(8) of the Code of Criminal Procedure

The court’s reasoning treated the proposed documents’ relevance, provenance, custody, and authenticity—and the unexplained delay in seeking their production—as material considerations.

No judicial precedents were cited.

The court found that the petitioner had not explained why the video and prescriptions were not given to the Investigating Officer earlier, how they had been stored or preserved, who had held them, or how their authenticity and source could be established.

Given the four-year delay and those evidentiary gaps, the court held that the petitioner had not shown entitlement to produce them before the trial court.

Rather than foreclose their consideration altogether, it left open the option of submitting them to the Investigating Officer for examination.

It permitted the petitioner to produce the documents before the Investigating Officer, who may examine them and, if considered relevant and necessary, receive them in accordance with law and file a further charge sheet under Section 173(8) CrPC for consideration by the jurisdictional court.