Nueva Delhi: The Supreme Court said Thursday that the very repeated ‘The bond is the rule and prison is the exception’ principle that gives importance to the personal freedom of the underlying prisoners did not extend to Criminals and hardened gangsters accused of committing multiple atrocious offenses.
“The biggest challenge for prosecution in this country is to take witnesses to the Court to leave the gangsters and hardened criminals. Witnesses fear for their lives and that of their family members,” said a bank of judges Surya Kant and NK Singh.
“As the police do not yet use modern scientific methods to investigate crimes, the absence of witness statements before the Court of First Instance results in the case for years, the defendant obtained bail and even led to its acquittal.” Said the bank while rejected the arguments of lawyer Ashok Panigrahi for the granting of the bond to a notorious Gangster of Odisha who faces multiple positions of murder.
When Panigrahi argued that the crimes (two murders) occurred in 2016 and that the defendant had been in jail for almost nine years, state lawyer Somraj Choudhury, taking the example of the bank’s observations, told the court that the defendant, the accused, Sushanta Kumar Dhalasamanta, was accused in more than 40 criminal cases and that the witnesses were afraid to appear before the court to depose against him.
The bank found the unfortunate statement and said: “If a state government tells SC that witnesses fear depositing in a court of first instance against a gangster, reveals a worrying aspect: the State cannot provide adequate protection to witnesses to witnesses despite the law. Rejecting the Dhalsamanta Bail Declaration, the bank said in a lighter vein that it would be interesting to remain in jail as if it came out, a rival could be expelled by a rival. “You, like all other notorious criminals, must obtain all the facilities of the prison staff,” he added. The bank said: “If the accusations of prosecution that he is a notorious gangster that faces more than 40 cases that involve atrocious offenses are true, then it would not be interesting to the company to free it on bail.”
The Bank asked the Court of First Instance to hold the procedures twice a month in the case against Dhalasamanta and asked the HC supervisor judge to monitor the progress in the trial to ensure that it would be completed within a year. He also ordered the Prosecutor to provide security to witnesses to persuade them to depose without fear before the court. “If the Prosecutor’s Office does not, the judge of first instance would inform this to the Supervisor Judge of HC, who would intervene to guarantee the protection of the witnesses,” said the bank.
