Hyderabad: Criminals roam free as warrants aren’t served

Hyderabad: As many as 33,594 non-bailable warrants have not been served in the state as on June 30, delaying the administration of criminal justice.

As the situation is quite alarming, since it ultimately affects the disposal of cases by the criminal courts and adds to the pending case numbers, Chief Justice Raghvendra Chauhan has told the administrative wing of the Hyderabad High Court to instruct Judicial Officers working on the criminal side to pursue the progress of execution of NBWs in line with the procedure prescribed under Sections 82, 83 and 299 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Rules 19 to 23 of the Criminal Rules of Practice.

This is not the first time an effort is being made to reduce the number of non executed NBWs by the High Court authorities to the Magistrates, but this time the High Court has told the Unit Heads of the lower court to submit periodical reports of the pending NBW cases.

The high court is determined to secure the disposal of all old cases ensuring zero pendency of cases that are more than five years old, and is very firm about bringing down the number of non executed NBWs.

Magistrates have been directed to take necessary steps to transfer them to the long pending cases (LPCs).

Vadyarapu Ravi Kumar, the Public Prosecutor in the Lower Court said that NBWs were pending for nearly four to six years, which has resulted in increasing number of pendency of criminal cases before the courts concerned.

“If this situation is allowed to continue, the very object of rendering justice in the earliest possible time will be defeated,” Mr Kumar said.

To deal with non execution of NBWs, Gorige Mallesh, a lawyer who practices in the High Court suggests that the names of the all those persons against whom NBWs could not be executed for more than six months should be deleted from the electoral rolls.

“Under Article 243K of the Indian Constitution, the State Election Commissioner is vested with the power to delete the names as the particular person not available for a long period or even more than six months,” Mr Mallesh said.

Non-executed NBWs act as dampener in proceeding

Hyderabad: The police machinery takes little interest in executing non-bailable warrants (NBWs). Non-execution of NBWs has lead to frustration of the legal process regarding Negotiable Instruments (NI) Act cases, which have burdened the docket sheets of the courts.

Many cases registered under the Negotiable Instruments Act have been closed because the parties have compromised before the Lok Adalat or parties have entered into out of court settlements.

Earlier, when the administration wing of the Telangana High Court had sought details of NBWs pending execution from the unit heads of the  district courts concerned and the state police, both filed two separate reports with conflicting figures.

According to the High Court Registry there are 33,594 pending NBWs, while the details submitted by the state police claimed that around 8600 NBWs are not executed across the state for various reasons.

The police informed the authorities of the High Court that the variation belongs to the  NBWs issued in the cases filed under the NI Act and claimed that in those cases police are no way concerned to execute NBWs issued for cheque failure cases and other cases under the NI Act.

The state police categorically submitted that there were 17,318 pending NBWs in the state as on 31 December 2016, with the highest in the Police Commissionerate of Hyderabad — 4,578 — followed by Cyberabad 2,643, Rachakonda 1,688, Ramgundam 738 and  that the number has halved within two and half years because of the efforts made by their subordinate staff.