Subscribe
Subscribe
- News
- Columns
- Interviews
- Law Firms
- Apprentice Lawyer
- Legal Jobs
- हिंदी
- ಕನ್ನಡ
BJP leader Kapil Mishra has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition before the Supreme Court seeking compensation for a rape accused, Vishnu Tiwari who was acquitted by the Allahabad High Court after spending 20 years in prison.
The plea has also sought guidelines and mechanism to take strict action and to prosecute fake complainants and framework to guidelines to pay adequate compensation to victims of wrongful prosecution.
Mishra has claimed that the Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST Act) is being misused "abused by filing fake and malicious complaints and no action is taken against the culprit in the absence of effective statutory/legal scheme for providing mandatory compensatory relief and to prosecute the fake complainants."
Tiwari, who lived along with his father and two brothers in a village in Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh, was booked for rape and for offences under SC/ST Act after a woman from SC community accused Tiwari of sexually assaulting her.
Soon after, a trial court found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
The Allahabad High Court in January 2021 set aside the conviction expressing anguish over the sorry state of affairs that contributed to the man's prolonged imprisonment, including the government's failure to recommend his case for remission of sentence or to commute the sentence under Sections 432-434 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
The High Court said that the testimony of the prosecutrix was found not to be that of a sterling witness and the medical evidence on evaluation belied any case against the accused/ appellant.
Mishra in his plea has highlighted the case to contend that false cases led to suicides of innocents who are victims of police and prosecutorial misconduct.
Lives of their families are destroyed after years of delayed trial due to the non-effective machinery which only gets aggravated by denial/reluctance to take penal action against misconduct of investigating officers and vexatious complainants, Mishra has submitted.
The plea by filed through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey states that the state is responsible for the tortuous acts of its employees and must repair the damage done to citizens by its officers, by adequate monetary and non-monetary compensation.
"The expression ‘falsely charges any person’ as used in S.211 IPC means a false accusation & there is no necessity of false accusation being made in connection with a criminal proceeding. The offences described in the Chapter IX and XI– public servants disobeying law, framing incorrect document, giving false evidence, fabricating false evidence, falsely charge a person of an offence under wrongful investigations, prosecutions, proceedings are concern areas," the petition states.
Besides, seeking compensation for Tiwari, Mishra had made the following prayers:
- direction be issued to the Central and Uttar Pradesh government to make a mechanism for speedy disposal of the cases pertaining to the under trial prisoners prosecuted under Special Acts and to frame guidelines for the under trail prisoners to decide their cases in a time bound manner.
- direction be issued to the governments to frame rules to release the poor persons who are victim of malicious and vague prosecution who are continuing in jail because they are unable to furnish adequate sureties/bonds.
- Central government be directed to fame guidelines and make a mechanism to take strict action and to prosecute the fake complainants as well as to frame guidelines to pay the adequate compensation to the victims of wrongful prosecutions and implement the recommendations of law commission Report No.277 on miscarriage of justice.