*Acquittals in criminal cases due to improper probe galore
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, May 2: Though the acquittals in criminal cases due to improper investigations continue to remain at higher side, the State Government has yet not shown any seriousness towards the important direction of the High Court about creation of at least 200 posts of ‘Investigating Sub-Inspectors’ for effective probes to ensure that criminals don’t go scot-free.
It is generally observed that due to the failure of prosecution to use and integrate modern techniques with the investigations the criminals get acquitted in the courts of law. This result into wastage of precious time at all levels-be it investigation or trial and proceedings emanating there from.
In this way, the object of criminal justice system, which is aimed at punishing a person guilty of an offence so that the sentence acts as deterrent against other potential offenders, also gets defeated.
Keeping all these and several other aspects of criminal justice system in mind, the Srinagar Wing of the State High Court had in the month of December last year issued important directions to the State for strict compliance that too within the timelines fixed by it. Justice Hasnain Masoodi, while dealing with a criminal revision petition, had also expressed serious concern over the faulty police investigations.
The High Court had directed the Government to sanction and create at least 200 posts of ‘Investigating Sub-Inspectors” for effective investigations in the criminal cases by using scientific devices so that trend of criminals going scot-free was checked up to large extent.
Keeping in view the importance of such posts, the High Court had explicitly directed the Director General of Police to move a proposal for creation of these 200 posts of ‘Investigating Sub-Inspectors’ before the Government within a period of two weeks from the date of receiving the copy of order.
The highest court of the State had further directed that once the proposal is so moved, the same shall be considered without allowing it to fall a prey to procedural wrangles and approved within a period of two weeks thereafter and on creation/sanction of posts the recruitment process shall be initiated and completed within a period of four weeks.
“As per these timelines the 200 Investigating Sub-Inspectors should have been in place at least by ending March this year. The timelines are over but no progress has been made to ensure strict adherence to the directives of the High Court”, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
Disclosing that Director General of Police has played his role strictly as per the orders of the High Court, sources said that soon after receipt of formal order of the High Court, the Police Headquarters, on the instructions of the DGP, had sent a formal communication to the Home Department seeking approval for creation/appointment of 200 Sub-Inspectors.
“We have not received any response from the Home Department till date”, a senior officer of the Police Headquarters said on the condition of anonymity, adding “the Home Department might have taken proposal with the Finance Department as creation of such a large number of posts involving huge financial implications requires concurrence of Finance Department”.
In response to a question, he said, “we cannot write again and again to the Home Department…..the officers in the department are also aware of the High Court orders and all we can do is to wait for their approval”.
However, none of the senior officers of the Home Department responded to the repeated telephonic calls made to ascertain fate of the proposal.
“Due to non-adherence to the directives, the concern of the High Court about acquittals in the criminal cases due to ineffective investigation remains unaddressed”, sources said, adding “the fate of the directions is hanging in balance despite the fact that High Court had told in clear terms that procedural wrangles shall not be allowed to create hurdles in creation of 200 posts”.
Sources further said, “keeping in view the track record of the State in allowing the important issues to gather dust, no time-frame can be fixed for sanction, creation and recruitment of these 200 Sub-Inspectors”.
It is pertinent to mention here that High Court had directed that these police officers should have qualification of Science (Biology and Chemistry) and three years Degree in Law. The High Court had even asked for posting at least one such SI in each Police Station of the State and two or more in the Police Stations of Jammu and Srinagar cities besides Police Stations of major towns/ district headquarters of the State.
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