NEW DELHI, Aug 28: Voicing concern over the “communication gap” between police and jail authorities across India on nabbing proclaimed offenders, a Delhi court has suggested that the Centre set up a “centralised data bank” which can prevent such offenders from evading action.
Metropolitan Magistrate Naresh Laka advocated forming a centralised data bank where information of all proclaimed offenders (POs) can be fed and it can be checked whether an arrested person has earlier been declared a PO by any other court in any part of the country.
Stating that there was lack of connectivity between probe agencies and jail authorities across the country over apprehending POs, the court asked Delhi Police Commissioner and Ministry of Home Affairs to make system more effective in this regard.
The exercise of proclamation of POs, it said, can be more effective if the publication are made on the internet on the website of Delhi Police, District Courts, Prison Department.
The magistrate passed the order in a case where the accused was found to have been declared a PO before his arrest in another case.
The accused was wanted in a case of 2001 when a headless body of one Raghubir Singh was found in Rajouri Garden but no clue of the culprit was found. In February 2010, one Govind was arrested in another case and disclosed having killed Singh nine years ago.
Govind escaped from custody and was declared proclaimed offender. When the court directed police to ascertain if he has been arrested in any other state, it was told that their is no connectivity between police and jail authorities across India.
“It is a common phenomenon that lakhs of criminals abscond every year during probe or trial of cases. Consequently, they are declared PO,” the court said.
Referring to a news report, it said “there are 13,000 POs in Delhi alone. In my personal opinion, the data of all POs is not up-to-date on account of various administrative reasons and communication gap between courts and the police station.”
“Such information can be sent to computer system of all police stations in such a manner that whenever any person is arrested and when his particulars are entered in the system, the system can alert whether he has been declared a PO in any other case,” it said.
Regarding the current system of proclamation of POs, the magistrate said it is done by affixing notices at the house of the offender or outside the court.
“The exercise of proclamation can be more effective if the publication are made on the internet on the website of Delhi Police, District Courts, Prison Department. Such information can be used by local police, special police units (like EoW, crime branch, special cell), CBI, NIA, RAW, passport agency, courts also,” it said.
It also asked Department of Information Technology, Director General of National Crime Records Bureau and Director General (Prisons), Tihar Jail to take action in this regard.
The court also pointed out the lack of coordination between police and jail authorities and said whenever an accused is admitted to a jail in any criminal case, the jail authorities do not know if he has been declared PO in any other case. Likewise, when a person is in jail, even then police gets him declared a PO in some other case.
It also said information of State Crime Record Bureau, Delhi is not adequate as it does not display involvement of accused persons in other cases in India.
The judge said his enquiries from Tihar jail revealed that presently there is a system of making computer entries of every inmate in Tihar and Rohini jail with his name, parentage and even biometric finger prints.
Such information, the court said, “can be more useful if it is put on internet and a programme can be developed with the help of NIC (National Informatics Centre) and the data collected from all jails in India can be made available on a website open to all.”
The court said, by such means, whenever a person is arrested or jailed in any case, it can be checked from the data bank whether he has been declared PO in any other case in any part of India.
It said thousands of POs can be traced like this and their cases can be reopened. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel