NEW DELHI: After a decade of high-pitched campaign for protection of rights of accused and some favourable judicial rulings, the Supreme Court on Thursday said it could not be stressed beyond a point to cast a shadow on the rights of victims’ families.
The comment – “time has come to send out a message to citizens that right of victims’ families was as important as the right of the accused for fair trial” – came from a bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and Justice A K Sikri, which appeared exasperated by the stress laid by senior advocate Basava P Patil on the right of the accused to be produced before the trial court and not conduct proceedings through video recording.
It is the right of the accused under the criminal procedure code to be produced personally before the trial court and not conduct the proceedings through video conferencing which curtailed his right to get a fair chance to defend him, the counsel said.
But the opposite counsel informed the court that the person concerned was a gangster facing charges in more than 30 serious offences, including murder and dacoity. She said the state is ready to produce the accused before the trial court as and when required but preferred conducting the proceedings through video conferencing.
The bench recounted how the gangsters behaved when leniency was shown to them and told the senior advocate whether he remembered the rein of terror in the 1980s unleashed by two rival ganglords Kotwal Ramachandran and M P Jayaraj.
The CJI, who hails from Karnataka, recounted an incident when a young man, who was witness to a crime and was to depose before a court in a case against Jayaraj, went to the nearby shop and was murdered. “The parents of the boy went insane. What about their rights? Do we get witnesses against such gangsters who do not flinch a bit while committing murders?” the CJI asked.
“Which witness will come and depose against such gangsters? Those who come they turn hostile. The time has come to send out a message to the citizens at large that not only the rights of the accused should be respected but the rights of victims’ families should also be given importance,” the CJI said.
While staying a high court order giving relief to the accused, the bench attempted to strike a balance between the right of the accused and the rights of the families of the victims.
TOI | Jan 9, 2015
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