With the police failing to make a watertight case before the trial court in almost all high-profile crimes and the accused persons either walking away with acquittal or getting lighter punishment, a note has been placed before the Supreme Court by amicus curiae Harish Salve in the police reforms case for urgent direction to all the states for separating the investigation wing from normal policing.
The note assumes significance in the wake of the latest “failure” of the Mumbai police to make a fool-proof case against Kanada actress Maria Susairaj in TV executive Neeraj Grover murder case and she walking away with a lighter punishment of three years only for destruction of evidence and the charge against her fiancé Emile Jerome Methew converted into culpable homicide not amounting to murder, in which maximum sentence is only 10 years.
The case has again put a big question mark on the capability of the police to investigate a crime meticulously and the failure of its prosecution wing to handle it properly before the trial court.
Mr Salve, assisting a bench headed by Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia in re-framing the guidelines for the states on the police reforms, initiated on a PIL of former DGP Prakash Singh, has cited several past instances of the high-profile cases where the police had virtually bungled in almost all the states.
The note stated that the investigation wing of the police needed a complete overhaul and converted into a specialised unit with all modern facilities to crack the crimes, which with advancement of technology have gone high-tech and the police continuing to use archaic methods of investigation, in which “torture” was used a major weapon.
It said that police officials, right from the constable level to the IPS officer, should be given an option for serving in the investigating wing and separate cadre be created for it.
The police officials employed in the investigation wing be imparted a proper training in various aspects of probing the crime and not to be deployed in other duties of policing, except in extraordinary situation.