The Hindu : `Comprehensive review of criminal laws needed'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 28, 2002

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`Comprehensive review of criminal laws needed'

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI April 27. The former President, R. Venkataraman, has called for a comprehensive review of the criminal laws and the procedures to ensure speedy justice.

Inaugurating a conference on "fundamental principles of criminal justice" here on Friday, Mr. Venkataraman said that tardy investigation, absence of witnesses, delay, cumbersome procedures, lengthy judgments, paucity of criminal courts and the non-filing of a large number of vacancies of judges were the bane of the criminal justice system (CJS). All these problems needed to be addressed so that the people reposed faith in the efficacy of the CJS.

The Union Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, wanted the CJS to be fair, time-bound and result-oriented. Considerations like integrity and fairness of the police system, the right of the accused for fair trial, the larger interest of civil society, expeditious and time-bound trial proceedings, increasing the number of judges and timely filling of vacancies and checking witnesses turning hostile should be built into the system. A serious re-look at the perjury law was also necessary to improve the criminal justice delivery system, he said and added that what was at stake was the rule of law and constitutional guarantee. The president of the Bar Association of India, Fali S. Nariman, in his keynote address said the CJS was in a terrible shape. He suggested dispensing of recording of evidence and confessional statements as they were farce and untenable.

According to the Secretary, BAI, Lalit Bhasin, the seminar was organised by the BAI in association with the Justice V.S. Malimath Committee on Reforms of Criminal Justice System to help the committee firm up its suggestions and recommend to the Government measures for streamlining CJS.

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