New Delhi: "Every acquittal in a criminal case should be understood as a failure of the justice delivery system and in serving the cause of justice", the Supreme Court on Tuesday said directing the governments to punish investigating officers in such cases.
A bench of Justices C.K. Prasad and J.S. Khehar expressed concern over the growing number of acquittals due to poor investigation and directed all state governments to put in place a mechanism within six months for proper training of its officers to ensure the accused is punished and at the same time innocent persons are not framed in criminal cases.
“Every acquittal should be understood as a failure of the justice delivery system, in serving the cause of justice. Likewise, every acquittal should ordinarily lead to the inference that an innocent person was wrongfully prosecuted.
“It is, therefore, essential that every state should put in place a procedural mechanism which would ensure that the cause of justice is served, which would simultaneously ensure the safeguarding of interest of those who are innocent,” it said. The bench directed the home department of every state to examine all orders of acquittal and to record reasons for the failure of each prosecution case for finding out mistakes committed during probe and prosecution.
Science to have edge over proof
New Delhi: The proof based on scientific advancement “must prevail” over the conclusive proof envisaged under the law, the Supreme Court has said while observing that DNA test is accurate to ascertain the parenthood of a person.
Justices C.K. Prasad and J.S. Khehar also said the result of DNA test is said to be scientifically accurate and it cannot “compel” a man to bear the fatherhood of a child when the scientific reports prove to the contrary. “In our opinion, when there is a conflict between a conclusive proof envisaged under law and a proof based on scientific advancement accepted by the world community to be correct, the latter must prevail over the former.” The order came on a petition of a man who had approac-hed the SC against the order of the High Court which had confirmed the direction of the magistrate's court to pay maintenance to his wife and her daughter. The man had denied in the court that the girl was his daughter.
