Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Crime against women and children grows only and only because our Criminal Justice system fails to send clear message of dire consequences to future offenders, by pronouncing severe sentences and punishments to today’s criminals.
We have outlined the points by which the state government of Madhya Pradesh can curb heinous crime against women and children. We request your immediate attention for the following:
1. Presently Public Prosecutor is not attached with the police department and hence for the lack of proper scrutiny before submission of charge-sheet in the court, in many cases due to lacuna in investigation the offences are not proved, and the accused gets the benefit and goes scot free. Legal Officers should be attached with the District police immediately. The MP Police has already submitted a proposal to the MP Govt. Especially in matters of grievous and heinous crime against women and children, we request you to look into it and provide Legal officers so that because of faulty investigation the accused does not get the benefit. This step will also enable the courts to pronounce tougher sentences in cases of crime against women and children.
2. In the meantime, the Women’s Rights Council (WRC) has approached leading criminal lawyers of the State and requested them to assist the Police whenever heinous crime happens against women and children. Front-runner advocates such as Ajay Gupta, Amit Singh Sisodia, Harish Mehta, Vivek Singh have gracefully accepted to provide all legal inputs to police whenever and wherever required.
We, acting as catalyst, offer the state police their legal services and till you may appoint Legal Officers, these highly professional legal experts will help police file air-tight cases against child-rapists and murderers. The police can approach them district-wise, or the PHQ can approach them for their intervention in cases in districts as well as in the state capital Bhopal.
(Please understand, their advice would be only and only for heinous crimes against women and children.)
3. Apart from offering their advice to you, the WRC has also requested them to oversee the trials of all such cases in Madhya Pradesh. As Counsel for the WRC, they would observe, record and make suggestions to us which we can forward to the state govt. The WRC would be requesting for a list of such cases in courts from each Range IG, and monitor them through the legal vision of our advocates.
(Sir, we have followed this process earlier in 2003-2004 and were able to get many tough sentences against child-abusers, and also got the first death sentence ever for a child rapist in 2007, from the court of then District Judge Hon. Renu Sharma in Bhopal. After the death sentence the crime graph of offences of such type went down.)
4. Sir, to ensure justice kindly look into the judicial infrastructure of Madhya Pradesh.
A. Immediate attention should be given to increasing the number of Courts in MP Judiciary. We need adequate number of Judges, Judicial Officers Public Prosecutors and staff. Presently heavy workload on the Judges impedes their capacity to dispense speedy justice.
B. Immediate attention has also to be given to pending cases of heinous crime. All such cases should be dug out and taken as priority by all courts.
C. The judiciary has to be extra conscientious about time-factor while ensuring justice. Judges have to concentrate upon dispensing ‘Justice’ rather than pronouncing ‘Judgments’. There should be a strict time-frame defined by the Government for crimes of above nature and the judiciary should abide by those time-frames.
D. Day-to day trial should be made a practice in all cases especially heinous crimes, as it is mandate in the Procedural Law of our country.
Sir, Kindly note, this is WRC’s second open letter to you on the issue of crime against women and children. We are simplifying your job by giving you easy solutions to a very complex problem. Following these you could be known as the first Chief Minister in India to bring crime against women down by your clear vision and focused aims. We now expect instant and intensive action from the state, and from you.
Chandna C. Arora
Founder & President
chandnans@gmail.com
+91 9406991008
+91 9755183801