The Calcutta High Court held that a victim cannot be denied investigation documents simply because their application cited a CrPC provision instead of the correct BNSS equivalent. The court applied a substance-over-form principle, ruling that procedural technicalities must not obstruct a victim's substantive right to access case documents during investigation. The judgment reinforces that the transition from CrPC to BNSS should not be weaponised to defeat legitimate rights through citation errors.

This ruling sits at the intersection of two exam-critical ideas: the rights of victims under the new criminal procedure code, and the principle that substance prevails over form in procedural law.

Under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) 2023, which replaced the CrPC from 1 July 2024, victims have a statutory right to access documents related to the investigation of their case. The BNSS has introduced or repositioned several victim-centric provisions — a key structural change examiners will probe. The corresponding provision under CrPC was Section 173 (police report and documents), while the BNSS equivalent is Section 193.

The Calcutta HC's core holding is doctrinal: courts must look at what a party is asking for, not just the label they attached to their request. If the substance of the application correctly invokes a right that exists under the new law, a technical mislabelling of the provision is not fatal. This echoes the general principle in procedural law — courts should be 'liberal in construing procedural provisions to advance justice.'

For CLAT PG, the examiner will frame a passage around either this judgment or the BNSS victim-rights provisions and ask which statutory provision governs, what happens when the wrong section is cited, and whether the right survives the CrPC-to-BNSS transition. The distinction between CrPC Section 173 and BNSS Section 193, and the victim's right to documents at the investigation stage, are the anchor facts to lock in.