NEWS SNIPPET
sanction from government.
withdrawn in its entirety.
From the EC Desk
T
he Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and Police R e f o r m s Wa t c h ( P RW ) , Mumbai note with consternation the Maharashtra government's decision to make certain amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure which will make prosecuting corruption and torture cases even more difficult than it already is at present. CHRI and PRW urge that the Cabinet decision be
On 6 June, the Cabinet, agreed on amendments to Sections 190 and 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to the effect that a Magistrate would not be able to take cognizance of a complaint against any public servant (this includes MLAs, bureaucrats, corporators, and even elected members of municipalities and panchayats) without the prior sanction of respective competent authorities in the government. Investigating agencies are restrained from even conducting preliminary enquiries into the complaints and allegations without getting prior
In carving out this unprecedented exclusion from prosecution for public officials, the state government has conveniently ignored rulings in a 5bench Supreme Court decision Lalita Kumari v Govt of UP & Ors (2013) that lays down that where the facts given in a First Information Report (FIR) make out a cognizable offence, it is mandatory for the police to file the FIR. The police may do a preliminary inquiry only when it is unclear whether cognizable or non-cognizable offences are made out in the complaint. The scope of the preliminary inquiry is only to determine if a cognizable offence is made out, not verify the information received. This is already a considerable safeguard against malicious prosecution. More recently in Subramanian Swamy's case (2014) the Supreme Court reaffirmed this position when it
MAHARASHTRA GOVT. SHOULD NOT ASSAULT PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY: CHRI & PRW 15 EASTERN CRESCENT
JULY 2015