Lawyers strike finds support from TRS

After about a month since the lawyers began boycott of courts in Telangana State, the TRS government seems to have woken up to the issue. G Vinod, TRS leader, called on the agitating lawyers and assured them of his full support to them.

“I will raise this issue in the forthcoming session of the Parliament,” he added. Later, on Saturday he also called on the State Law Minister along with the leaders of the agitating lawyers’ associations and urged the latter to intervene in the matter and resolve the contentious issues at an early date,

In fact, the State government, too, seems to be anxious to end the agitation before it takes an ugly turn after it is intensified from July 2, but it is really in a fix. Here, the Central government and higher judiciary are involved and the State government has a little role in the matters concerning the allocation of judges to the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states.

But certainly the issues involved are not of such nature that cannot be resolved. The bifurcation of High Court has already been done and but for some teething trouble, everything seems to be on the right tracks. The matters touching upon judiciary have to be dealt with extra care and wisdom.

Indeed, it is the duty of every citizen to uphold the supremacy, dignity and sanctity of judiciary. Therefore, it is neither in the interest of the country as a whole, nor is it in the interest of the different stakeholders to allow the present situation to slip out of control.

‘Hyper technical approach’
The Supreme Court has justified the criticism of trial court by the Karnataka High Court for taking the “hyper technical” view in blaming the mother of the deceased for lodging a delayed complaint. The apex court also noted that delay in lodging the FIR or complaint is not fatal in all cases.

Delivering judgement on June 3 in Crl. A No.1358 of 2016 in Satish Shetty V. State of Karnataka, the division bench comprising Justices Dipak Mishra and Shiva Kirti Singh observed as follows:

“The Court must show some sensitivity in cases of present nature where the victim’s closest relation – mother is a poor helpless lady. Even a well to do person may suffer a state of mental confusion when struck by such a tragedy. The prosecution in such cases is likely to be delayed further if the deceased has left behind children.

The issues relating to their safety and custody often require higher priority. Occurrences of the present nature require lodging of criminal case against persons who are already in the category of relation by virtue of matrimonial ties through the deceased and it is not always easy to take a decision whether to lodge a criminal case against a relation or not.”

The Court further added: “Hence in such cases the factum of delay has to be dealt with sympathetically keeping in mind the mental condition of the close relations of the victim. The trial court miserably failed on this count too.”

In this particular case, the delay also occurred on account of long delay in holding inquest proceedings by the Taluka Executive Magistrate under Section 174 of Cr.P.C. The offences related to Sections 498-A and 306 of the IPC.

Police takes serious note
Going by the media reports, it appears that the city police have taken a serious note of the cases pending investigation. The newly-appointed DCP in City Crime Station (CCS) has instructed the investigating police personnel to complete investigation in all pending cases “expeditiously.” He pointed out that at the most some complicated cases might take a period of six months to complete investigation, but certainly not six years.

This approach of the city police top brass augurs well to usher in the era of speedy justice. However, it must also be kept in mind that the police should not be in an undue hurry to close investigation at an early date just to get accolade from the superiors.

The quality of investigation is also important to secure conviction of accused persons. Such a pragmatic approach would indeed, earn a good name for the city police and would also give a reprieve to the courts who are already burdened with the heavy backlog of pending cases.

By: DR H C UPADHYAY