HC laments fall in standards of investigation by police

The Madras High Court Thursday

observed that the standard of investigation by police has drastically come down, citing the number of acquittals in serious offences.

Justice Anand Venkatesh made the observation while granting bail to an accused who suffered incarceration for more than 264 days, pointing out that during the trial before a lower court, the de facto complainant was unable to identify the accused.

"Even in this case, the respondent police has not taken any steps to conduct an identification parade and therefore, the whole exercise of conducting the trial has now become pointless.

"This court was made to believe based on the allegations made in the complaint that the case involved a grave offence. However, it now comes to light that not a single accused person has been identified by the witnesses before the court," the judge said.

 

There are many cases where the case of the prosecution is becoming pointless due to non-identification of accused in court and the failure of the prosecution to conduct identification parades, the court said.

"These cases only strengthen the apprehension raised by this court regarding the cases being registered by the police for the purpose of statistics," the judge said.

The court called for certain details of the offences classified on the basis of punishment, number of FIRs registered and number of cases where multiple FIRs were registered up to December 31, 2018 district wise.

The judge observed that this case has given an opportunity to the court to call for details on the cases registered by police, final report filed in the cases, trial conducted and the result of such cases.

The court also directed the Director General of Police to get the entire particulars from each district and submit them before the court within a period of four weeks from the date of receipt of the copy of the order.

The judge said the court would like to find some solution and evolve a process to improve the prevailing situation and try to bring about a change in the attitude of the police managing the criminal justice system.

The court posted the matter for further hearing after six weeks.