Agartala, Jan. 19: More than 300 people have been rotting in the jails of Tripura because an amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) made by the state government, extending the duration of remand for undertrials, ceased to have effect from October 31.
While many judges have been refusing police plea for remand beyond the normal period sanctioned by the Indian Penal Code (IPC), others continue to send arrested people to jail remand for 120 or 180 days.
According to sources, on May 26 last year, the state government tabled an amendment of clause 439-A of the Criminal Procedure Code, seeking to extend the period of detention without trial from 60 days to 120 days and from 90 days to 180 days for criminal offences of varying nature.
The amendment was made to plug loopholes in the existing provisions of the penal code, which are used by arrested militants to secure bail from court. The amendment was passed in the Assembly on May 28 but since it was under concurrent jurisdiction it had to be sent to the President for his assent. In order to enforce the amendment (seventh) early, the state government promulgated an ordinance on July 18 last year.
According to Article 213 of the Constitution, the ordinance needed to be ratified by the state Assembly in its next session, which commenced from September 19 last year.
This was not done and according constitutional provisions the ordinance became ineffectual within six weeks from October 31 last year.
Sources said failure to table and ratify the ordinance in the state Assembly in September last year created many complications in judicial functioning.
While a section of judges continued to stick to the lapsed ordinance and send undertrials to jail custody for periods of 120 and 180 days for varying offences, others refused to take cognisance of it.
The issue was raised afresh in the state Assembly on the opening day of the winter session by Congress MLA and advocate Jyotirmay Nath, who pointed out how more than 300 people had been languishing in jails without trial under the provisions of a lapsed amendment of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Chief minister Manik Sarkar, who also holds the home portfolio, assured the House that the law department would look into the matter and take corrective measures. Recently, leader of the Opposition Ratan Lal Nath addressed a letter to law secretary A.B. Pal seeking a clarification on the issue.
In his reply on January 9, Pal explained the background to the leader of the Opposition and said: ?In view of this legal position the aforesaid ordinance ceased to have effect after six weeks from September 19, 2003 when the session of the House commenced?.
Pal, however, was silent on what the law department was doing to regularise the matter of ordinance.
Describing the law secretary?s letter as a ?callous bureaucratic exercise?, Nath said by failing to issue a fresh ordinance or secure presidential assent to the amendment of the Criminal Procedure Code, the state government was committing gross human rights violations. He also lashed out at the law department for failing to properly guide the government on this sensitive issue.