HC pulls up police for poor investigation work

Coming down heavily on the police for turning prosecution cases pointless due to its failure to hold identification parades, the Madras High Court on Thursday directed the State police chief to furnish details of cases registered by the police and the result of such cases after filing of final report and holding trial.

Noting that these details would clearly bring to light the way the entire criminal justice system was operating in this State, Justice Anand Venkatesh said, “The standard of investigation by the police has drastically come down and it will be evident from the number acquittals that is happening in serious offences. If this is the situation faced while investigating the conventional offences of murder, theft, cheating, this court is afraid as to how the police are going to handle cybercrimes which has increased leaps and bounds, and which requires a lot of specialisation and expertise for the purpose of investigation.”

The court added that it was not its intention to find fault, but only wanted to “find some solution”going forward.

Justice Anand Venkatesh made the observation while granting bail to two persons accused of waylaying the complainant and snatching gold chain worth Rs 40,000 last May. The duo was arrested and remanded to judicial custody on May 31. But during the trial, the complainant stated that she was unable to identify the accused.

Pointing out that the police had not taken any steps to conduct identification parade and therefore, the whole exercise of conducting trial was now pointless, the judge said: “This court was made to believe based on the allegations made in the complaint that the case involves a grave offence, However, it now comes to light that not a single accused person has been identified by the witness before the court.”

Hence, the court added, no useful purpose would be served by keeping the accused inside jail any longer since the trial has already commenced and the complainant has already deposed before the court. The judge then released the accused on conditional bail.

However, he kept the petition pending so as to get the details from the DGP 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, and posted the case for reporting compliance after six weeks.