Can you divert VIP security for undertrials? HC to state

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has asked whether the state can remove the security being provided to VIPs and use it instead for escorting undertrials to court. The court took cognisance of the objections raised by the Amicus Curiae that the video-conferencing facility being used by the police as an alternative to producing undertrials in court was violative of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) norms that stipulated that undertrials be produced physically in court during hearing of their case. The state has been asked to inform the court about measures initiated to address the issue which has been pending for the past seven years.

A division bench of justices S.C. Dharmadhikari and Bharati Dangre was hearing a criminal public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a jail inmate, who, in a letter to the court, complained of not being taken for trials by jail authorities. The letter said that the authorities reasoned that they did not have sufficient staff to provide escorts on a daily basis to undertrials.

On Tuesday when the matter came up for hearing, the bench told the state and the Amicus Curiae that it intended to dispose of the case and hence, wanted to know the progress in the matter. Senior advocate Nitin Pradhan, Amicus, informed the court that based on prior directions by another bench, the video-conferencing facility had been started in jails and trial courts through which undertrials could appear before the court. He was quick to add however that while video-conferencing was to be used in exceptional cases, the state had been using it liberally as a result of which instances of undertrials being brought to court had reduced drastically. He even suggested that the state could reduce the number of policemen assigned as security for VIPs and reassign them as escorts for undertrials to solve the problem.

After hearing the submissions, the court directed advocate Pradhan to provide a compilation of the progress in the case.