HC raps police, sets up panel to revamp criminal justice

The Madras High Court Wednesday set up a committee to recommend steps for reformation and re-integration of convicts and accused into the society and suggest best practices to improve the quality of investigation, as it found fault with the manner in which police handled criminal cases.

Justice Anand Venkatesh said statistics published in the National Crime Records Bureau and data furnished by the Tamil Nadu Police reveal an outrageously sorry state of affairs in the criminal justice system and the working system of police.

He set up a committee comprising retired IPS officer R Nataraj, retired SP V Sithanan, senior advocate N R Elango, Dr K V Kishore Kumar, director of Banyan, an organisation working in the field of mental health, and Deputy Commissioner of Police M Sudhakar to look into the issue.

Passing interim orders on the matter arising out of a bail application by two accused, he said the effort of the court was to create a healthy criminal justice system in the state and directed the panel to submit its report within eight weeks.

After going through the district-wise crime record data pertaining to the five-year period from 2013 submitted by the state director general of police, Justice Venkatesh said it could be seen that there was a clear tendency to keep adding FIRs against an accused, especially in cases of theft, robbery and prohibition offences.

A reading of such FIRs showed that the incidents mentioned were figments of imagination of police and done only with the view to keep adding charges against a particular person or persons.

By this, the system ensured such persons never get out of the criminal net throughout their life, the judge said in his order.

It was also noticed that in serious crimes such as murder and dacoity, police added FIRs against the accused on charges of criminal intimidation and attempt to murder based on alleged confession of co-accused, thereby creating grounds for preventive detention.

Unfortunately, in most of these cases, this court noticed that the accused persons were in the age group of 19-25, the judge said.

He also noted there was a high rate of conviction in cases for offences carrying a maximum jail term of three years, while a converse trend was seen in cases involving crimes with up to 10 years of imprisonment, with a high rate of acquittals. This was the trend in life imprisonment category cases also.

Observing that the preventive detention law has become a shield for shabby and defective policing, the judge said the situation called for a thorough revamping of the criminal justice system in the state.

"It looks like the police are caught into this vicious cycle. That shows on the poor record of convictions in serious crimes," he said.

The judge said there was a need for a criminal justice system that attempts to accurately assess guilt and innocence along with the future risks that the guilty pose to the society.

Instead of finding a complete cure to the disease, police seem to be looking for temporary solutions, the judge said, adding that reformation can be brought forth only by changing the attitude towards criminals.