'Cops add extra provisions in cases of sexual offences'

New Delhi: The police tends to add extra penal provisions, while registering a first information report, especially in relation to sexual offences, and this often gets carried over into the charge sheet and is relied upon by magistrates to deny bail during the trial, according to two-member panel, which told the Delhi high court on Thursday.

The panel said that the police, while registering FIRs in sexual offence cases often adds charges relating to trafficking and  under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.

Set up by the high court in November last year to examine the issue of undertrials languishing in prisons here for several years without bail, the panel gave its report after examining the records of several women, who lodged in the Tihar jail during their trial in connection with rape and other cases.

The report, placed before a two-judge bench of acting chief justice Gita Mittal and justice C. Hari Shankar, said that the trial courts denied bail based on the seriousness of sexual offences charged against the accused instead of undertaking a risk assessment of each accused.