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| NEWS > 01 March 2006 |
Other related articles:
NOPD officer punished for wear
With minutes left in the last shift of his 35-year New Orleans police career, Sgt. Bobby Guidry received a call from a supervisor telling him he had been suspended for wearing the wrong uniform shirt, the veteran officer said.
The Police Department confirmed the censure Tuesday, though it quibbled with the term "suspended." Rather, Guidry is "under investigation for wearing the wrong uniform," said Police Department spokesman Bob Young.
Instead of the standard-issue all-black uniform, Guidry, a veteran officer in the city's Uptown 2nd District, chose the powder-blue uniform... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Times of India - India
01 March 2006
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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'The cheapest commodity in our
The Jessica Lal case continues to evoke strong reactions. Prominent lawyer Satish Maneshinde on the inadequacies in the system and possible solutions.
On our country, a large number of cases face the same fate as the Jessica Lal case (all the accused were acquitted). Many of the powerful, rich and those with muscle power get away. I can understand if something like this happens in a remote corner of the country where witnesses are illiterate or poor or have no knowledge about civil liberties.
But this has happened in Delhi. The furore all over the country over the judgement in the Jessica Lal case is only natural. This case highlights the inadequacies in the criminal administration system.
1) First and foremost, the focus must be on prevention of crime. The reason why the crime rate has increased in our country is the growing frustration levels in all walks of society. The tolerance level has gone to its lowest ebb. The law enforcing machinery - the police machinery in the country has failed miserably in controlling crime.
Still worse is that the investigative skills are still archaic. All over the world we see scientific investigative techniques extensively being used like brain mapping, narcoanalysis, finger printing, lie detectors and forensic science like DNA to get to the bottom of the crime.
In our police stations we still largely have traditional investigative skills like coercing the accused and extracting confessions and chargesheeting, which do not always succeed in a trial.
Even if the police submits a chargesheet in a court of law the main job of the prosecution is to tender reliable and honest witnesses who can be subjected to intensive cross-examination. That is, if the witnesses stand by their police statements. The cheapest commodity in our country today is integrity.
Basically purchasing integrity seems to be the easiest thing to do. Many of the witnesses who come to the courts today have little regard for truth. A large number of them turn hostile maybe for monetary considerations or they are too scared to speak against the accused or probably are plain careless and thickskinned, not wanting to be part of the judicial process.
3) Once the matter reaches the court at the trial stage, it is prolonged for many years. The basic factor is that the ratio of the number of citizens to a judge in our country is one judge to more than 1.50 lakh people, whereas in the US and other developed countries it is one judge to 30,000 roughly.
The facilities given to the courts like staff, or in terms of infrastructure are highly inadequate. The salaries and the other perks are inadequate. On any given day there are about 100 cases on an average before a judge. It is humanly impossible to pass judgement on more than two to three cases.
Hence the backlog that's mounting day by day. The judge has to decide on the basis of evidence that's brought on record through witnesses. If the judge finds no material to substantiate the charges he has no option but to acquit the accused.
Tomorrow: Should a hostile witness be subject to perjury? What does Mumbai think?
In a nutshell, what needs to be done:
The police machinery should investigate the cases and block all the loopholes which the accused time and again uses in the court of law. It should weed out the black sheep in its force who tamper with the evidence.
The law should be reformed so that a witness who makes a statement before the police should not be allowed to backtrack from his earlier statement. Bring him before a magistrate to record his statement under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Court (CrPC0.
The law needs more teeth where the judiciary can come down on witnesses who turn hostile and subject them to perjury. Matters concerning perjury must be taken seriously by our courts because the Supreme Court cannot, time and again, be called upon to order a fresh trial or a re-trial in every case.
roshni.olivera@timesgroup.com
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