Shivangi Prakash –
Published on: September 6, 2021, at 12:40 IST
The Supreme Court on Friday requested that the Director of the CBI inform the court of what actions have been done to enhance the prosecution unit and what obstacles have been identified.
The Division Bench of Justices SK Kaul and MM Sundresh instructed the Director, CBI to file an affidavit within six weeks, observing that there was a widespread notion that the success rate on file was quite low.
“There is a common perception that the success rate over the cases taken on file is rather low. Thus, we call upon the petitioners to place the year wise data on the cases under prosecution, the time period over which they are pending before the trial courts and the percentage of conviction rendered by the courts at different level”
The Bench also said, “We would like to know from the petitioners on the steps taken or proposed to be taken over the inadequacies in existence. Such inadequacies extend to the manpower, infrastructure facility and the quality of investigation.”
The directives were issued in response to a special leave plea filed by the Director, CBI, challenging the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir at Srinagar’s ruling dated March 26, 2018, in a case involving Advocate(s) Mohammad Altaf Mohand and Sheikh Mubarak.
The case pertained to alleged fabrication/ creation of false evidence by pressuring, inducing and threatening the eyewitnesses to make false depositions implicating the police/ security personnel in the commission of offences of rape and murder of two women in Shopian.
The Supreme Court further highlighted that the Director (Prosecution) position had been vacant for eight months and had only just been appointed.
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