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`Reclassify criminal offences'

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI Nov. 11. Apart from implementation of the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court regarding arrests for protection of human rights, there was need to amend criminal laws by reclassifying offences into three categories, the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, Justice A.R. Lakshmanan, said today.

Besides this, some of the offences under Special Acts could be `de-criminalised' and a heavy civil penalty, instead of prosecution, could be imposed, the Chief Justice said inaugurating a 10-day training programme on human rights for city police officers. The programme, organised by the State Human Rights Commission, would benefit about 800 police officials in the rank of Inspector and Sub-Inspector.

The offences could be reclassified as minor, medium and major, and arrests for minor offences could be removed altogether. The accused should face the charge after filing the charge sheet.

For a minor offence, the plea of bargain and release on probation of the accused could be adopted. As regards medium offences, after framing of charges, the accused should be given an opportunity for compounding the offences or plea for bargain or to compensate the crime victim depending on the facts and circumstances of the case.

Major offences should be dealt with so that the accused could be adequately punished. If re-classification of offences was done, trials of graver offences could be completed within six months from the date of filing of charge sheet. The backlog in courts would also reduce.

"These experiments are conducted in different countries and they had succeeded. There is nothing wrong if we experiment them." Once the power of arrest was not there, the question of taking a person into custody and torturing him did not arise. For every minor offence, no arrest was required and arrest did not give any desired result.

Transparency of action and accountability were two possible safeguards, which had to be strictly understood to check abuse of police power, he said.

S. Sambandham, member, State Human Rights Commission, said there were doubts in the minds of police officers whether the rights body was empowered to award compensation to victims. The Commission was fully empowered to do so. The police should not view all visitors to police stations as accused.

The Director-General of Police, B.P. Nailwal, said the basic duty of police was to protect the rights of citizens as enshrined in the Constitution. At times, the rights of individuals were infringed upon and this was mainly due to ignorance and even lack of skills in investigation.

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