SC BLAMES HCs FOR DELAY IN JUSTICE

Apex Court Finds 2,280 Cases Of Rape, Murder Stayed By HCs

Ever wondered why so many accused in heinous crimes - murder, rape, kidnapping and dacoity - roam around for years before the law catches up with them?
This question bothered the Supreme Court a lot and it found that the High Courts were mainly responsible for such a sorry state of affairs. For, they have stayed the proceedings in these cases and forgotten all about them for years.
As many as 2,280 cases relating to murder, rape, kidnapping and dacoity have been stayed by HCs at various - FIR, investigation, framing of charges and trial - stages and then left in the limbo, possibly allowing the accused to remain at large on bail.
A Bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and A K Ganguly sought assistance from Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam for collating data on cases relating to the four categories of heinous crimes which have been stayed by HCs after it found an identical situation pointed out in a petition filed by Imtiaz Ahmed, where the Allahabad HC had stayed a criminal case since April 2003.
The efforts by the SG to collate such cases threw up startling facts:
Murder cases stayed at various stages by HCs were 1,021 (45% of the total cases), rape cases 492, kidnapping cases 550 and dacoity 217
As many as 41% of the 2,280cases were pending for 2-6 years and 8% for more than 8 years. Of a total of 178 cases pending for more than 6 years, 97 were murder cases
Calcutta High Court appears to be the most liberal when it came to staying cases relating to heinous crimes accounting for 31% of the 2,280 cases. Allahabad High Court was not far behind having stayed 29% of the cases
In most of the cases across the HCs, the duration for which the case is pending varied from 1 to 4 years. It is seen that 34 out of 201 cases in Patna HC and 33 out of 653 cases in Allahabad HC were pending for more than 8 years
After perusing the enormity of the situation and having regard to the case in hand that related to Allahabad HC, the Bench headed by Justice Singhvi requested the counsel for the High Court to furnish data about the number of cases which have been stayed atthe stage of investigation or trial and listed the matter for further hearing on July 9.
The report was submitted to the court by Subramaniam, who took assistance of Dr Pronab Sen and Dr G S Manna, secretary and deputy director in the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, in studying the data supplied by various HCs.
The SG, in the concluding part of the report, said “the fact-finding exercise by the Supreme Court has revealed a problem of serious dimension” and suggested that the apex court would be well within its jurisdiction to direct the HCs to dispose of the matter within a year from the date of grant of stay in cases relating to heinous crimes.
If a case was not disposed of within a year, the concerned judge must record the reasons which should be communicated to the concerned chief justice of the HC, Subramaniam suggested.

DINAKARAN’S TRANSFER; PREZ DECISION SOON

The file containing a two-month-old proposalby the Supreme Court collegium headed by Chief Justice of India to transfer Justice P D Dinakaran as Chief Justice of Sikkim High Court has gathered momentum and a decision from the President is expected soon.
The proposal, sent to law ministry by the collegium in the first week of April, gathered speed on Thursday after rumours about Justice Dinakaran, who had recused himself fromjudicial work, resuming normal functioning set the Karnataka High Court abuzz.
Law ministry sources said the proposal to transfer the Karnataka HC chief justice, against whom an impeachment motion is pending in Rajya Sabha, would get the necessary approval from authorities soon.
This means the other components of the proposal — transferring Uttarakhand HC Chief Justice J S Khehar to Karnataka HC as chief justice — would also be approved by the government and given effect to along with the order transferring Justice Dinakaran to Sikkim HC.
With impeachment motion pending against Justice Dinakaran, the Rajya Sabha chairman has appointed a three-member committee headed by Supreme Court judge Justice V S Sirpurkar to inquire into the alleged corruption charges levelled against him.
With corruption charges being inquired into, Justice Dinakaran could not have been sent to a major HC, forcing the collegium to zero in on Sikkim HC, which has a strength of just three judges. In comparison, the sanctioned strength of Karnataka HC is 50 judges.
On the flip side, there is very little judicial work in Sikkim HC, which has a total pendency of 88 civil and criminal cases. In contrast, Karnataka HC has a pendency of 156,030 cases.
Justice Khehar, who was sworn in as chief justice of Uttarakhand HC on November 29 last year, would now become chief justice of Karnataka HC.

TEST AWAITS FOR FRESH LAW GRADUATES

Law graduates passing out from this year and intending to take up legal practice will have to pass an all-India Bar examination to be conducted by the Bar Council of India on December 5.

Every graduate after enrolment as lawyer in the respective State Bar Council will have to clear this examination, which will test skills and basic knowledge critical for a new entrant to the profession.

It is intended to check for eligibility, rather than expertise, BCI Chairman and Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam said here on Wednesday, after launching the BCI’s Vision Statement 2010-2012, which addresses the challenges before the legal profession and creating solutions.

The examination would be held once in six months and anyone failing in the first test could re-appear.

A legal consultancy firm, Rainmaker, will assist the BCI in conducting and managing the test in nine languages and in preparing the material for the test, for which it would collect Rs. 1,300 from each candidate.?

Mr. Subramaniam said: ?The Indian legal profession consists of approximately 11 lakh registered advocates, around 1,000 law schools and approximately 5 lakh law students. Every year, approximately 60,000 law graduates join the legal profession.?

Asked whether the BCI had taken permission from the Human Resource Development Ministry for conducting the test, Mr. Subramaniam said the council, as a statutory body, was not dependent on its approval.

On entry of foreign lawyers, Mr. Subramaniam said the BCI was opposed to it. Unlike in other countries, in India there was a standard of practice maintained by lawyers and they were not governed by earning money alone. The stage of allowing foreign lawyers has not yet come. The BCI was open to a debate on this issue.

KASAB APPEALS TO BOMBAY HIGH COURT

Mohammad Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving Pakistani gunman, who was sentenced to death for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, has filed an appeal in the Bombay High Court challenging the verdict and sought a legal aid panel to fight his case.

It has been reported that Kasab filed the appeal through the jail authorities and his plea for a lawyer has been forwarded to the High Court Legal Services Committee (HCLSC).

The HCLSC would now present Kasab’s plea for a lawyer before Acting Chief Justice J N Patel, who is patron in chief of Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority and senior Judge and Chairperson of HCLSC, Justice Ranjana Desai.

Earlier on May 6, Kasab’s defence lawyer K. P. Pawar said the decision about appealing to the High Court against the death sentence would be taken after consultations with the convict. A Mumbai Special Court on May 6 sentenced Kasab to death on four counts.

Judge M L Tahiliyani awarded death sentence for Kasab on-waging war against India, murder, conspiracy to murder, and participating in an act of terror under Unlawful Activity Prevention ct (UAPA).

Judge Tahaliyani felt that Kasab’s crime fell under the judicial definition of ’rarest of rare’.

Kasab, who is the 52nd prisoner on death row in India, was also awarded life term on five other counts.

EC TAKES BSP TO SC OVER SYMBOL

The Election Commission has moved the Supreme Court complaining that Bahujan Samaj Party, headed by UP chief minister Mayawati, was adopting stalling tactics in petitions seeking cancellation of its election symbol ‘elephant’. The EC said BSP had repeatedly stonewalled the commission’s queries on details of the number of statues of elephants and that of Mayawati installed at public/private places using government funds between 2007 and 2010 along with photographic evidence. It urged the apex court to direct BSP to furnish all relevant information sought by the commission in relation to the charges levelled by petitions, which accused the ruling party of installing a large number of statues of Mayawati and elephants on public expense.
In the petition filed by advocates Ravi Kant and Sukumar, the EC said BSP had taken a stand that EC had no jurisdiction to ask for any information despite the body being constitutionally mandated to conduct and supervise elections, which included allotment of election symbols and arbitrating any dispute relating to it.
The BSP had told EC that statues of elephants constructed by the state government out of its state budget were not similar to the election symbol of the party. Taking umbrage to such a stand,the EC told the apex court that it appeared as if BSP had itself decided the issue whether or not the elephant statues were a replica of its election symbol or not without bothering to furnish basic information sought by the commission.
The ruling party further told EC that the construction of statues was an action taken by the state government to implement the decision of the state legislature. “The political party cannot be penalized for actions of the government,” it had said.
Rejecting this contention, EC had written to the state on April 21 stating that its stand was untenable and that the party and the government would do well to assist the EC in providing the requisite information. But there was no response from the government, EC told the court.

PIL DUE ON AMBIGOUS JEE INSTRUCTIONS, FINALLY ARRIVES

JEE-2010 was not the first time that ambiguous instructions created confusion for the candidates. A close look at the JEE since 2006, when questions were first made available, reveals that it has been quiet frequent.

In fact, senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who is arguing a PIL on anomalies in the JEE, says he has been receiving a number of phone calls from parents and students who claim they did not get the expected result.

“Our plea is that candidates should be allowed a carbon copy of the answer sheet that they can take out. After the JEE, IIT should provide the answer key so that a student knows exactly how much he is going to score,” he says.

Ambiguous instructions relate to Multiple Choice Questions which have one or more correct answers without having any negative marking for selecting a wrong choice.

In 2006, questions carrying 72 marks had one or more correct answers without attracting any negative marking for a wrong choice. In 2007, such questions rose to 108 marks. In 2008, there was a marginal decline to 102 marks. In 2009 and 2010, questions carrying 96 and 93 marks, respectively, had oneor more correct answers without any negative marks.

In fact, after 2008 JEE, IIT itself published the questions and the answer key. It was found that for many questions all the options were correct. Therefore, it was possible for a candidate to get full marks by darkening all the bubbles.

When the matter came to light after this year’s JEE, IIT-Madras, which conducted this year’s JEE, told the Delhi High Court, which is seized of a PIL on the exam, that if any of the choices in such a question was found to be a wrong choice, the candidate would get zero.

The PIL has been filed by Rajeev Kumar of IIT-Kharagpur. As per the evaluation scheme submitted before the court, a candidate will get zero because he darkened a wrong choice along with correct answers.

SC SCOLDS POLICE FOR PLAYING WITH LAW

A day after expressing concern over Delhi Police allowing murder convicts to roam free when they should be in jail,the Supreme Court on Tuesday discovered that the malady extended to Punjab and might well be in vogue in other parts of the country.A vacation bench comprising Justices G S Singhvi and C K Prasad was livid when it found that petitioner Charan Singh,whose conviction by the trial court for throwing acid on others had been confirmed by the Punjab and Haryana high court,was still free and had not been put behind bars by police.
It is a matter of surprise that despite the trial court convicting the accused and the high court confirming the conviction four months ago,the police has not yet arrested the convict and put him behind bars, the bench said and directed senior superintendent of police,Ludhiana,to immediately arrest Charan Singh and submit a report to the apex court.
The bench said such laxity on the part of the police had made the criminal justice system suspect in the eyes of the public.Those who have clout,they flout the law, it said.
Criminal law has become an ass in the eyes of the public.We have an agency which is to arrest an accused after he is pronounced guilty by the court.If that is so,then how is it possible that the convicts are not arrested the bench said.
Trying to sensitise law enforcing agencies to the grave fallout of such inaction,the Bench said,In this,case acid was thrown on several persons who are scarred for life.Their lives are ruined.Yet,the convict is roaming free. The Bench said Singhs appeal challenging the HC verdict of February 2 would be heard only after the SSP of Ludhiana filed a report stating that the appellant had been lodged in prison.