The Hindu : Miscellaneous / This Day That Age : dated November 17, 1954: Bill to amend Cr. P.C.

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Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous - This Day That Age

dated November 17, 1954: Bill to amend Cr. P.C.

The Lok Sabha on November 16 began consideration of the Home Minister's Bill to amend the Criminal Procedure Code as reported by the Joint Select Committee. Every single provision of the Bill, the Home Minister, Dr. K. N. Katju, asserted, was designed to make trials speedy, fair and inexpensive. It was the intention of the Committee to provide the fullest protection to the accused, but at the same time to ensure that the guilty were punished while the memory of the crime lasted and public conscience was alive to it. He also declared that the criticism levelled against the original Bill, falling broadly into four major points, had been amply met by the Committee. Dr. Katju asked the House not to be "frightened" by the large number of minutes of dissent and said that every single provision in the Bill was intended to protect the accused if he had got a case to be protected. The object in providing for speedy trial was not to consign the accused to jail or to send him to the gallows. It was in the interest of the accused himself to have such a trial so that if he had done a wrong he would be punished, if he was innocent, he would be acquitted. A "melancholy sight" in jails today was the undertrial prisoner who had to spend months in jail before getting a chance to appear before a court. It was also important to have the trial when the memory of the crime was fresh and public conscience had not been dulled, he said.

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