“Present judicial service lethargic, lacks quality justice”

By A Staff Reporter

IMPHAL | Aug 6

The present Indian judicial service is lethargic and consumes a lot of time to process a case and even lacks quality justice, said N. Pramod, lecturer of LMS Law College.

He was speaking at a one-day consultation programme to improve ‘Criminal justice delivery system’ which was held today at regency hall, Classic Hotel. The conference was organised by Women Action for Development (WAD).

He was speaking on the topic “Academic inputs of the evolving trend of criminal justice delivery system from gender perspective”. He further said that the legal fraternity considers ‘evidence’ as commodity and has even commercialised available evidence.

Pramod further noted that high courts should also give provision to trial courts in handling a case instead of giving a free hand and criticising later.

Giving the keynote address, secretary of WAD, Sobita Mangsatabam said that this conference is held because of the raising number of cases of crime cases especially of violence against women. Fast track courts had been set up in the state but even after a month “we do not see any progress in delivering justice for the victims and family”, she pointed out.

Superintendent of Police (SP) of Imphal East, K. Kabib said that there are many hurdles faced by investigating agency during the course of investigation. He explained that the main hurdles are delay in lodging an FIR by the victims and family, customary system of a community, lack of forensic science laboratories and shortage of manpower in the police force.

Dr. Th. Bijoy Singh, HOD of Forensic medicine RIMS, explained in detail on the topic “Role of Forensic expert in aid of delivery of justice”. He said that there are lots of methods to identify the causes of death.

Editor of Imphal Free Press, Pradip Phanjoubam spoke on the topic “Challenges and lacuna faced by the media in following a case with special reference to investigative journalism”. The role of presiding judge and counsel of the victim were presented by Th. Surbala, retired district and session judge and L. Sevananda Sharma, practicing advocate in High Court, Manipur respectively.