Liberal Criminal Procedure Code comes into effect - lawyers and Police not happy

President okays 7-year hitch for arrests
19 Jan 2009, 0048 hrs IST, Vishwa Mohan, TNN

NEW DELHI: The recently-revamped Criminal Procedure Code, which divests police of arrest powers in cases where maximum sentence is upto seven

years, become law with President Pratibha Patil finally giving her assent last week.

The presidential assent, which came nearly three weeks after the bill was sent to her after getting it passed from Parliament, has now paved the way for the government to notify it.

Once the law, CrPC (Amendment) Act 2008, becomes effective, the police, instead of arresting the accused, will be obliged to issue him/her a "notice of appearance" for any offence punishable with imprisonment up to seven years. The person can be arrested only if he/she does not appear before the police in response to the notice.

Seven years or less is the maximum penalty for a host of offences, including attempt to commit culpable homicide, robbery, attempt to suicide, kidnapping, voluntarily causing grievous hurt, cheating, outraging a woman's modesty and death caused by negligence. more

The radical change in the CrPC has, however, drawn flak from a number of Bar associations across the country. Lawyers -- who also observed strike in various courts after the bill was passed in Parliament -- argue that the amendment (in Section 41) doing away with mandatory arrest provisions would remove fear from the minds of criminals who would misuse the provisions under the garb of personal liberty.

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CrPC amendment Bill is seen as a setback by certain senior police officials who readily

admit they are ill prepared to implement it.

One senior officer went to the extent of saying: "Delhi is not ready to usher in such liberal and revolutionary changes." However, the top brass put up a brave front saying the amendments would be implemented in "letter and spirit". more

India tops world murder count

India tops world murder count
2 Jun 2008, 0050 hrs IST,TNN

NEW DELHI: India has earned the dubious distinction of being the country where maximum number of murders takes place in the world, three times more than its neighbour Pakistan and double the figures in United States.

There were more than 50 lakh incidents of crime reported in 2007-08 which included murder, rape and drug offences, a government report said. There were 32,719 incidents of murder recorded in India, whereas there were 16,692 in the US and 9,631 in Pakistan, the report compiled by National Crime Records Bureau and released by the Union Home Ministry, said.

India was followed by South Africa which registered 30,960 incidents of murders. Austria had recorded just 148 murders, whereas Israel registered 177 such incidents.

However, the rate (per lakh population) of murder and other crimes in India was much less compared to other countries. The murder and rape rate in India is three and four (per lakh population) respectively whereas South Africa recorded occurrence rates in the two categories as 65.27 and 115.8 respectively.

"Most of the murders take place due to passion, sudden provocation, crime related and family disputes,’’ Delhi police spokesman ACP Rajan Bhagat said. Delhi has recorded an increase of 1.08% in murders in 2007 compared to 2006.

The number of rape cases was maximum in the US which recorded 93,934 such assaults followed by South Africa 54,926 and India 18,359.

The data was compiled in 22 countries which included Australia, Argentina, Austria, Bulgaria, Japan, Canada, England and Wales, Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand and Sri Lanka besides others. In India, there were 44,159 incidents of sexual offence, 2,70,861 cases of serious assault and 22,814 robbery and violent theft-related incidents, the report said.

The maximum number of robbery related cases were reported in Japan which had registered 17,25,072 such counts.

The US topped the crime list with 2,31,13,708 total crime related incidents, whereas India registered overall 50,26,337 criminal cases.