Bhuvana Marni
Published on: October 14, 2022 at 23:21 IST
On Friday, the Supreme Court denied a petition asking for guidelines and directions to prevent malicious prosecution, erroneous convictions, and the detention of innocent people. A bench made up of Chief Justice UU Lalit and Justice Hemant Gupta heard the case.
CJI Lalit stated at the start that the petition comprised “sweeping prayers” and that it would be preferable for specific cases of unlawful arrest and imprisonment to be brought before the court.
As a result, the writ petition was rejected as “misconceived.”
The petition requested that all Subordinate Courts be given a set of clear guidelines or directions to prevent prosecutorial misconduct, false malicious prosecutions, and detention of innocent people by police or investigating authorities.
According to the petition, these prosecutions violated Article 21’s (Right to Human Dignity), Article 14’s (Right to Equality), and Article 15’s (Right to Freedom).
The petition also asked the Union and State Authorities to set up a time-bound plan with funding for advanced scientific institutes, DNA testing labs, etc. so that investigators and officers may receive proper training in the evaluation of evidence.
The petition also asked that the definition of “victim” in Section 2(wa) and Section 357 of the Criminal Procedure Code be changed to include those “who has been acquitted and have been victims of wrongful malicious prosecution or incarceration.”
The petition, relying upon the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) annual statistical report– “Prison Statistics India” (PSI), 2015, stated that–
“There were 4,19,623 prisoners across the country out of which, 67.2% i.e. 2,82,076 were undertrials (i.e. people who have been committed to judicial custody pending investigation or trial by a competent authority); substantially higher than the convict population i.e. 1,34,168 (32.0%).
A review of the data in PSI shows that across the country as well as in States, undertrial prisoners continue to be higher in numbers than the convict population…The data shows that 25.1% (70,616) of the total under trials spent more than a year in prison; 17.8% (50,176) spend up to 1 year in prison as under trials, 21.9% (61,886) of the under trials were in prison for 3 to 6 months, and 35.2% (99,398) under trials spent up to 3 months in prison.”
The petition also stated that as per the 2018 report of the NCRB, more than 1 lakh cases under Section 498A of the IPC were reported in India in 2018.
While referring to Section 498A as “one of the most grossly misused sections of the Indian Penal Code”, the petition stated that cases under the said section made up for 27.3% of all the cases of crime against women reported in 2018.
It stated that–
“This provision has been always been in the news with allegations of false complaints and very low conviction rate. In the span of thirteen years between 2004-2016, the number of pending cases under 498A have more than doubled and increased by 161%.”
The court remained unconvinced by the submissions made in the petition and dismissed it.
Case Title: Fight For Justice Foundation & Anr. Vs. UOI W.P.(C)