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High time to bring objectivity to criminal justice system

Jessica case was doomed from the beginning, says Prashant Pandey

The need for reforms in the criminal justice system has been emphasised several times in the wake of the acquittal of all nine accused in the Jessica Lal murder case. And the usual lament has been that the rich and the powerful have practically appropriated the entire law machinery to themselves. A closer look at the way the system functioned in the case indicates that one reason for the miscarriage of justice was the huge scope of discretion the functionaries involved at every step had at their disposal.

It is not that the present Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) does not have provisions that, say, would make a witness liable to perjury if he lies under oath. For that matter, there are clear provisions under which statements of the witnesses can be recorded before a magistrate making it difficult for him to retract later.

However, for every such provision there is another provision that gives the police an option. Under Section 161 of CrC for instance, a police officer can record the statements of the witness in his presence. He has the option of getting it recorded before a magistrate under Section 164, but barring victims of the criminal assault, it is not binding on him.

On the other hand, the Delhi police, while challenging the trial court's verdict in the Jessica Lal case in the Delhi High Court, have argued that a lot of circumstantial evidence placed on record was not taken into consideration. Also, they have pointed out that a lot of emphasis was given to the fact that the witnesses turned hostile, while the fact that they partially supported the prosecution's version was not taken into account.

Had the inquisitorial system been in place, the court would have asked the investigators to unearth more evidence -- if they considered it insufficient -- to find out who the culprit was. But then again, if asked by the courts to do the same in the current context, the police could have obviously not refused. There are simply no provisions to stop the courts from satisfying themselves of the thoroughness of investigations and adequacy of evidence before giving the verdict.

And yet the court was very much within its rights to give the verdict it did because the police had messed up with the forensic evidence and their key witnesses had turned hostile, whatever the reason.

In fact, the manner in which the entire law enforcing machinery was put to work in this case, it appears that the case was doomed right from the beginning. Destruction of evidence, fabrication of evidence, people helping the accused to escape, not many witnesses turning up, other witnesses turning hostile and a rather "focused" view of the circumstances taken by the court -- all these things happened in complete knowledge of the people who mattered and yet the case fell.

And the common thread from the beginning to the end was that those at the helm exercised their discretion to see only what they wanted to see. The question everyone is asking today is why the police or the judiciary did not take a proactive approach and prevent miscarriage of justice when it mattered. The answer is that being proactive was a matter of discretion for all the functionaries as they had an option not to be so.

It would not be out of place to mention that there exists a school of thought -- though not very powerful -- among the establishment that the current laws are adequate and the problem is with implementation. But this argument is based on the assumption that everyone will be honest. No wonder there are no takers for this argument in these times.

Therefore it is urgent that the reforms in criminal jurisprudence, which make "quest for truth" mandatory for the courts, are implemented at the earliest. Otherwise it would be difficult to attain objectivity in the functioning of the system. Discretion, after all, can be influenced through money, muscle or other means.

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High time to bring objectivity to criminal justice system

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