The 47th All India Police Science Congress recently concluded in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, and it has been reported that the Union Minister for Home Affairs has once again spoken of this Government's desire to carry out amendments to the Indian Penal Code 1860 [IPC] and the Criminal Procedure Code 1973 [CrPC]. This, according to me, is the second such public statement made by this Government. While this may not itself be of any significance, I would argue it assumes immense significance considering that this is the second such statement to have come within the first six months of this Government's tenure.
It is highly probable, then, to expect these proposed amendments to be released for public discussion within the next year. In the build-up, the Minister has made fairly moderated remarks about the process of legislative reform, as well as about the objectives that the proposed reforms will seek to pursue. One of these objectives is the idea of a speedy trial for criminal cases. That delayed disposals of cases is a problem plaguing the Indian legal process is a fact nobody can dispute — in fact, some might argue it is the problem of our legal process.
Given this enormity of the problem, and the public statements of moderation and deliberation made by the Union Minister, it was quite surprising to read the Minister of State for Home Affairs to have reportedly stated that the proposed amendments might include provisions that restrict the right of an accused person to appeal against a conviction, in case of offences such as rape. As per the report, the proposed amendment will only permit an appeal to the Supreme Court, and in doing so ensure that an accused undergoes his sentence rather than remains at large by prolonging an appeal.
With the greatest respect, it is exactly this tendency of enacting horribly myopic changes to the law displayed by successive governments, that not only worsens the problem of case delays, but also compounds various other problems with the criminal process. Consider this proposal seriously for a minute: Sure, in theory, taking away one stage of appeals may speed up the ultimate disposal of a case. But stop here and think about what will happen to all those appeals that currently end up before the High Court. Sure, not everyone will chase the appeal to the Supreme Court, but in light of the stakes involved (the shame of conviction and the lengthy sentence) it is fair to assume a lot of people will still want to go to Court. So, then, what ends up happening is that there are worse delays at the level of the Supreme Court. Delays which will take valuable time away from the judges to decide matters of constitutional importance.
Thus, such myopic "reform" to the law to get "speedy trials" end up worsening the very problem it set out to resolve. Besides which, it compounds the many other problems that are a part of the criminal process. I mentioned above that many persons may choose to not pursue appeals if the only option is to go to the Supreme Court. Only a fool would argue that this is the result of a fair choice presented to the accused person. Rather, considering the profile of an ordinary convict as per the government data, far more likely is the probability that the convict just cannot afford to fight that litigation. The legal process can't be made to run so fast that it crushes the very persons it is meant to serve.
There is no doubt that the criminal process has many problems in its current state. There is, again, no doubt that the causes of these problems are manifold, the outcomes of complex interactions between different parts of the process, that have been going on for decades (even centuries). The need for slow and careful deliberation in the process of attempting a resolution of these knotted problems cannot be overstated. It will do us well if our Ministers abandon the search for silver bullets.
P.S. — While I appreciate the criticism mounted by the Union Minister against the "colonial" nature of the criminal law statutes, we mustn't forget that some of them, such as the Cr.P.C., are not colonial but the product of extensive deliberations made by legislators of an independent India.
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