Assam case prosecution hits stalemate as existing prosecutors ‘not cooperating', HC told
The Gauhati High Court was informed that it slowed efforts to speed up pending criminal cases, even as over 200 newly recruited prosecutors await training
File image of Gauhati High Court (Photo: ghconline)
Guwahati, March 8: Director of Prosecution Makhan Phukan has told the Gauhati High Court that there is a kind of “stalemate in achieving expeditious prosecution” as the existing public prosecutors who are being replaced by newly recruited ones are “not cooperating” with the prosecution.
The submission was made before a designated court for MPs and MLAs comprising Justice Devashis Baruah and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury.
The court was told that more than 200 new public prosecutors, additional public prosecutors and assistant public prosecutors were appointed recently. These newly recruited public prosecutors will now be sent to Assam Judicial Academy for their training for a period of six months.
“The existing public prosecutors are not cooperating with the prosecution, as they are being replaced by the newly selected public prosecutors and there is a kind of stalemate in achieving expeditious prosecution,” Phukan told the court.
The court has sought the opinion of the Advocate General in the next hearing.
The designated court was earlier “disheartened” over reports of the long pendency of criminal cases in the district judiciary of Assam. Some cases are pending since 2003.
The court had requested the Director of Prosecution to provide a roadmap to expedite the cases.
Phukan had earlier flagged six reasons for such delay – frequent witness absences, summons are not served, process returned without execution, delays due to transfers of cases and re-assignments, non availability of sanction orders and frequent adjournment by the accused legislature and delay in obtaining forensic reports.
During a hearing on March 5, the court was of the opinion that to expedite the old pending cases and to properly monitor those cases, two separate lists are required to be prepared – consisting of those cases which are registered and pending till the year 2016 and another consisting rest of the cases from 2017 till date.