State gets two weeks to comply with HC order on forensic labs

The Bombay High Court today expressed unhappiness over Maharashtra government's delay in complying with its earlier order to set up mini forensic labs in every district and tehsil to ensure speedy probe into crimes.
The court gave Maharashtra government two weeks' time to comply with its earlier order to set up mini-forensic labs in every district and tehsil to reduce pendency of cases requiring analysis, in order to ensure speedy probe into crimes.
Pulling up the state for not obeying its earlier directives, an HC bench headed by Justice Naresh Patil asked Maharashtra government to file a compliance report of its September 5, 2014 order which had directed the establishment to take a policy decision on the issue within three months.

"We direct you (Maharashtra government) to file a compliance report of our earlier order before March 25," the judges said.
In its September 5 order, the court had directed the state government to fill up 125 vacant posts in forensic laboratories during the next three months. The HC had also asked the state to purchase 45 fully-equipped mobile forensic lab vans.
Today, the judges asked the state government about the steps it had taken to appoint medico-legal officers to man forensic labs and also what it had done to comply with the HC's directive to induct 45 mobile vans in the state.

These court directives were given on a suo-motu (on its own) public interest litigation based on a newspaper report which had stated that 21 out of 35 districts in the state did not have any forensic lab facilities.
The bench also observed today that mobile forensic labs could reach crime scenes immediately along with police investigation officers to collect on-the-spot photographs, blood smear samples and fingerprints.