Shivani Thakur
Published on: April 23, 2022, at 15:53 IST
The Supreme Court agreed to hear a petition highlighting the need for the government to frame guidelines for compensating victims of wrongful prosecution by the police or authorities.
A Bench led by Justice U.U. Lalit said that the petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay will be included in the list of cases on April 26.
“India, with a population of around 1.5 billion, has no effective statutory/legal mechanism for the wrongful prosecutions due to police and prosecutorial misconduct resulting in a pandemic of false cases which has not only destroyed the social fabric of the nation but also affected the overburdened judiciary with alarming pendency of over 40 million cases,” Mr. Upadhyay has argued.
The petition said the government had not bothered to implement the recommendations made by the Law Commission of India in its 277th report on the miscarriage of justice.
Mr. Upadhyay has urged that, being custodian of the Constitution and protector of the right to life, liberty and dignity, the apex court “may use its plenary constitutional power to frame the guidelines for compensation to victims of wrongful prosecutions”.
The petition says innocents fall victims to malice of authorities who use criminal justice system to settle scores.
“Due to no fear of being prosecuted by courts and growing tendency to frame innocents for ulterior motives there has been unprecedented surge in filing of false cases,” the plea said.
