Justice Kumar seeks fast-track courts to clear human rights cases

Justice M M Kumar has sought the replacement of certain offences under Indian Penal Code (IPC) by special laws to reduce the crowding of complaints at every police station and the creation of fast-track courts to clear the pendency of (human rights) cases. Justice Kumar was chairing the first meeting of the Core Group on Criminal Justice System organised yesterday, by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

He said that policing is important in speedy trials in criminal justice system, adding that despite several efforts, including the Supreme Court directions seeking police reforms, the ground reality hasn’t changed much.

According to NHRC Chairperson Justice A K Mishra, the digitisation of documents will help in fair and speedy investigation and trials. He expressed concern over the delayed trials as well as implementation of courts’ orders convicting a person.

NHRC member Dr D M Mulay, stated that poor conviction rate is a result of the lack of required police and administrative reforms. He pointed out that there is also shortage of judges. On the other hand, NHRC Director General Investigation Santosh Mehra, spoke about the shortage of police personnel at various police stations in proportion to the population needs and stressed that it needs to be considered on priority in the interest of ensuring timely justice to the people.

Bimbadhar Pradhan, NHRC Secretary General informed the Core Group members that an estimated 4.4 crore cases are pending across the Supreme Court, High Courts and District Courts. Since March 2020, about 70 lakh more cases have been added to the pending cases, he said, adding that in the Criminal Justice System, the focus needs to be tilted more towards the victim’s rights and smart policing.

Some of the important suggestions from the attendees were:

• Awareness about various laws among police personnel at the lower rank of hierarchy needs to be enhanced;

• Rate of conviction of police officials and non-compliance of law by them resulting into violation of human rights needs to be looked into;

• Increase number of police personnel and police stations in proportion to the number of complaints in a demographic area they have to handle;

• Introduction of social workers and psychologists in the Criminal Justice System to ensure empathetic proceedings;

• Training programs and training modules to be introduced, especially with respect to gender sensitisation, child rights, human rights and rehabilitation of victims of crime.