Important rights of accused in criminal cases

Could be classified broadly into categories as below.

• After FIR filing and before charge-sheet filing
• After Charge-sheet and before trial 
• Before trial and during trial. 

after filing of charge sheet, the trial will begin, the Pw1, and other prosecution listed witnesses will be examined in chief, and the defence lawyer will be given opportunity to cross examine all the witnesses and then the case will be posted for arguments in which both the sides will elucidate their side strength to somehow win the case.

In my humble opinion, it is not possible to briefly enumerate the rights of an accused in a general way and also difficult to narrate what can be done to weaken the case against the accused without knowing the specific factual matrix of a case. There are a large number of provisions in Cr.P.C, IPC and Evidence Act which provide several rights to the accused and the same need to be applied and adapted to the factual matrix of a case. In fact, even the Constitution of India, even though it uses abstract language, contains several important rights of an accused, for example, Articles 20, 21, 22 contain some important rights of an accused, or rather a collection of several important rights of an accused.

@Kalaiselvan Sir and Ashok Sir, 

 

Thanks for your replies. I guess the list is really exhaustive.