Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 15: In a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking effective prosecution of criminal trials particularly involving capital sentence and life imprisonment with a view to prevent crime, convict the offenders and to make punishments a real deterrent, Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice M M Kumar and Justice D S Thakur today issued notice to the State and sought statistics regarding the number of Public Prosecutors and Additional Public Prosecutors in the State, deficiency if any.
When the PIL filed by final year students of Graduation in Law, University of Jammu came up for hearing, the counsels for the petitioners—Advocates Rohit Kapoor and Nadia Q Naikoo submitted, “effective prosecution is sine- quo- non for punishing the offender and can play a vital role in making the punishment deterrent. However, many criminals involved in heinous crimes are able to escape arrest and conviction solely because of deficiencies in prosecution”.
“The Law Commission has stated that the Public Prosecutor has to be independent of the executive and all external influences, also independent of the police and the investigation process but the criminal justice system in the country including the State of J&K is flawed”, Advocate Kapoor said.
Pointing towards the Supreme Court judgement underlining the important role of Public Prosecutors, he said, “the Apex Court says that Judiciary—the High Court and the Sessions Court have a stage in the appointment of these officers but in Jammu and Kashmir the Law Department is engaging Public Prosecutors and Additional Public Prosecutors on contractual basis for the prosecution of criminal trials including trial before Session Courts in serious offences like murder and the rape”.
Advocate Kapoor further submitted, “not only the Supreme Court directions even the guidelines on the role of Prosecutors adopted by the 8th United Nations Congress on the prevention of crime and the treatment of offenders held at Havana, Cuba in 1990 to which the India was also signatory, are not being adhered to in Jammu and Kashmir”.
“In J&K, a Public Prosecutor and Additional Public Prosecutor get a retainer-ship of Rs 6000 and Rs 5500 respectively. The counsel fee for criminal cases like murder and rape etc is Rs 2000 for the entire trial which may last for years together, at times for more than a decade. This extremely low fee structure does not attract many lawyers with sound knowledge and experience in criminal law”, he said, adding “such lawyers are engaged by the accused as they are paid well by them. In high profile cases, very often the best of the lawyers with experience in criminal law are engaged for prosecution by the Government. This in itself shows that the Law Department is aware of the fact that the Public Prosecutors engaged by it may not be able to handle these criminal cases where they engage the Special Public Prosecutor”.
After hearing Advocate Rohit Kapoor, the Division Bench issued notice to the State which was accepted by Senior Additional Advocate General, Gagan Basotra. The DB also sought statistics regarding number of Public Prosecutors and Additional Public Prosecutors and deficiency if any and number of criminal cases pending in the District Courts. The DB has fixed April 23 for further hearing in the PIL.
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