HC concerned over rise in crimes of passion cases

A division bench comprising Justice N Kirubakaran and Justice Abdul Quddhose before whom the submission was made on Friday was also informed that the number of offences other than murder like suicide, kidnapping, assault committed owing to illicit relationship in Chennai for the past 10 years worked out to 213 while in the rest of the State recorded 621 cases.

However, the bench on observing that it is pertinent to note that 18 other questions that have been raised by this Court by an order dated March 3 have not been answered by the State government, also held, “Comparison of the details given in the affidavit are not tallying with details given in the newspaper reports. Therefore, all the queries must be answered with correct details. Further, the central government has also not given its response to the queries raised.”

Posting the case to July 5 to enable the State as well as the Centre to answer the queries, the bench also observed that in newspapers, one can notice a column regarding murders and people are shell shocked to know the murder of children by mothers themselves for the sake of illicit intimacy.

“It has become a social problem affecting the institution of marriage and family. Therefore, serious thoughts should be given by both state government and central government,” the bench held.

It also noted that whenever any offence against child or women is reported, the police must find out the reason for commission of such offences. If the details of motives and reasons are found out for commission of offences or rise in offences, the police are duty bound to record and report to policy makers who will be able to take steps/decisions to either arrest or control the commission of offences by addressing basic problems.

“It is said that the spurt in number of sexual offences especially against children are committed because of easy access and viewing of pornography, which is easily available in phones. In this regard also, police must make enquiry,” the bench added.