The Delhi High Court today expressed anguish over the "shuttling" of a proposal for more cops for the national capital between the Centre and police even as crimes against women and minors continued to occur "with impunity" in the city.
A bench of justices B D Ahmed and Jayant Nath directed the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to take a final decision regarding the proposal within four weeks and then to place it before the Ministry of Finance for approval and sanction.
"Keep shuttling. Play badminton. It will keep going on. It has been going on like this for more than two years. Even in badminton there is a smash or a point is scored. Here its an endless rally which goes on for two years tirelessly.
"First order was of December 18, 2012 and its four years now and nothing has happened and crimes against women and children are going on with impunity," the court said.
The bench said that earlier the issue was "shuttling" between the two ministries, and now it was shuttling between the Lieutenant Governor and MHA.
It said the anguish expressed by it earlier continues as even after scaling down the requirement of police personnel, "there is no end in sight" and wondered whether the authorities were interested in doing anything for the city.
The court was also "distressed" over the delay in sending of biological and chemical samples from police 'malkhana" (storage) to the forensic lab as in some rape cases there was a delay of more than 120 days, when there was a standing order of police to send them within seven days.
The bench said the delay leads to putrification of the samples resulting in the labs being unable to return a finding which in turn hampers the investigation and trial.
It said that Delhi Police should modernise its storage by digitising it so that it can be monitored in real time and directed the agency to file a status report indicating the manner in which it would carry out the modernisation so that there would no delay in sending samples to forensic labs.
The direction came after perusing the report filed by Delhi State Legal Services Authority (DSLSA) member Dharmesh Sharma regarding the state of storage at police stations.
The court also noted that there were delays in 100 number calls materialising on account of congestion at the end of the service provider and due to non-availability of sufficient lines and operators at the police control room (PCR).
Observing that response time of police was affected by amount of time taken for attending a distress call at the PCR, the court asked the Centre to give an affidavit on whether there was any congestion in the network when calling 100 and if yes, the solution for it.
It directed Delhi Police to file an affidavit indicating the adequate number of lines it needs and how it proposes to increase the same and what action, if any, has been taken regarding this.
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