What is meant by an Open Court?

Question: What is meant by an Open Court?

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Answer

Section 327 in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 mandates the trial court to be open.

The section states in 327 (1) that “the place in which any Criminal Court is held for the purpose of inquiring into or trying any offence shall be deemed to be an open Court, to which the public generally may have access, so far as the same can conveniently contain them.”

Provided that the Presiding Judge or Magistrate may, if he thinks fit, order at any stage of any inquiry into, or trial of, any particular case, that the public generally, or any particular person, shall not have access to, or be or remain in, the room or building used by the Court.

Thus, the place in which a trial shall be held shall be deemed to be an open court to which the public may have access subject to the orders of the trial Magistrate in a particular case that the public or a particular person shall not have access thereto. This section empowers a Magistrate to exclude the public generally or any particular person from the courtroom.

The Court has to exercise its discretion in proceedings in such matters as ought to be conducted in privacy. The power of the Court to hold certain trials in camera is inevitably associated with the administration of justice itself.

It was held by the Supreme Court in the landmark case of Kehar Singh v. State (Delhi Admn), 1989 Cr LJ 1 that the language of section 327 itself indicates that even if a trial is held in a private house or inside a jail or anywhere it becomes a venue of the trial of a criminal case.

It is then to be in Law an open place and anyone who wants to attend the trial can do so with the restrictions contemplated as regards the number of persons that could be contained in the premises where the Court sits. Merely because it is shifted from the ordinary place where the Sessions Court sits to the Tihar Jail, it does not become a trial not open to the public.

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