FAILURE OF CRIMINAL
JUSTICE SYSTEM
BY MR. TRIPURARI RAY
(ADVOCATE), SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
Email:- tripurariray83@gmail.com
Increasing Crime
Inspite of Public outrage against it, signals the failure of Criminal Justice
system. Low rate of conviction in comparison to United States of America,
Britain, France and other developed countries is also seen as a reason for
increasing crime rate. Till date Inspite of the media regularly highlighting
the increasing crime rate specially, crime against women there is no research
conducted by the Govt. (both state & central Govt.) to ascertain the causes
resulting into increase in crime. There is as on today no data to indicate as
to whether growth of crime rate is on account of mild sentences, or simply on
account of low conviction rate, still the Governments have increased the
sentences for certain sentences for like rape, enacted special laws relating to
sexual offences against children. Special Procedures to deal with organized
crime etc.
The increase in the number of crimes can
also be attributed to, factors like increase in population, decrease in
physical space between people, migration from villages to cities & towns
and coming up of slums, poverty, unemployment,
increasing gap between population Judge ratio resulting into long
delays, collapse of social interaction, disregard of social responsibility etc.
The problem of absconding accused:-
Till we know the cause we cannot control
the effect. Increasing the sentences,
reluctance of the judges to release an accused on bail may become
counterproductive. These two factors
together have led to the problem of accused persons absconding and continuing
with their crimes. Moving from one city
to another, absconding accused who has committed violent crimes acts as a “
Sovereign in a limited sense”. His extortion calls are rarely refused and
complained. His family lives in abundance and with pride. These absconding
accused are used by the crime lords in jail to execute there threats of
extortion, to eliminate their rivals in crime and to generally continue with
their business of crime including Supari killing. The crime lords are able to
carry out their profession from the safety of a well guarded prison. Thus
refusal to grant bail to a crime lord is counter productive. This, as a matter of judicial policy creates
more problems of law and order than it solves. Law, specially procedural law is
not a matter of convenience and its servants are bound to follow it, the concept
of rule of law dictates this. The Courts cannot ignore the same on account of
inconvenience like people are reluctant to become witnesses of search and
seizure. If today people are reluctant to become witnesses it is because the
police and the courts both have failed them. If there is a complaint by any
person of the public the police is reluctant to act on the complaint. Finding
no protection from the police respectable people do not co-operate with the
police. In other words it is lack of trust between the public and the police, a
very unfortunate situation. All courts, from Supreme Court to the trial court
have accepted this situation. The Supreme Court in a series of Judgments has
held that these days members of the public do not come forward to witness
recoveries of incriminating articles therefore the police are left with no
option but to get the recoveries witnessed by police officers. Thus section
100, 102 and 165 Cr.pc. Have become redundant. These provisions of Cr.P.C. provide safeguard against false implication
by dis-honestly planting of incriminating articles on the accused. These
procedural safeguards are not mere procedure but create a substantive right and
are protected under Article 21 of the Constitution. Violation of these
safeguards amount to violation of a guaranteed fundamental right and therefore
as per Article 13 of the Constitution the evidence procured in violation of
procedural safeguard is void and cannot be considered at the trial.
Relaxing the procedure established by
law creates an aura of unfairness around the criminal justice system. No person
would like to surrender to the legal system if he can afford to abscond and
survive.
The social factor:-
Control of crime and
social responsibility of a citizen apart from social factors depends largely on
the image of the police, which further depends on discipline in the force and degree of control
of the higher officers on their subordinates. The effectiveness and discipline
of a force becomes apparent from the turnout of its personnel. Uniform, neat, clean and well ironed, all brass items
in the dress properly polished, cap on the head, posture firm head held up high
with pride has an immediate effect on the people. Such turnout of police
personal creates a feeling of trust and security among the people and induces
fear among the criminal elements.
Corruption
The second aspect is of corruption and
political interference. As far as corruption is concerned salaries are
calculated on the basis of money required to run the house hold, there is no
component to ensure his integrity. The basic logic of corruption among Govt.
Officers is the ratio between their expenses and salaries. Extent of power is
much beyond the salaries. Salary of the officers is x and their expenditure is
x+A, now the officer is not bothered form where and at what cost he gets this
“A” and the result is corruption and consequent inefficiency. The Higher is the
officer the greater the power and more extensive the damage he can cause by his
corruption to the system and the people. The police as an institution has been
clamoring for more independence and more power. In the first instance the
police as a force was seeking independence from civil control. Initially the
district police force was under the control of the District Magistrate. It was
the District Magistrate who used to assess and write the confidential report of
the superintendent of Police. Thus the control was effective and there was a
different authority before whom complaint relating to the functioning of the
police could be made. This system of check and balance was done away in the 80’s or 90’s. The rate of crime and
also the incidents of custodial death has increased. Now the police as an
institution wants powers to record confessions of accused persons and also to
prove the statement of witnesses with the extent and level of corruption
prevailing in the country this power will be abused more than used.
It will be seen that the causes of
increasing crime rate are many. Some can be handled by reducing the extent of
corruption while others can be prevented by enforcing discipline in the police
force and reconsidering the policy of release of an accused on bail. The social
causes like population explosion and migration can be dealt with only by a long
term policy of spreading economic development on a state and village level.
(TRIPURARI RAY)
ADVOCATE
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