Supreme Court Issues Notice On Pleas For Compensation Of Victims Of Wrongful Prosecution

The Bench headed by justice UU Lalit has also tagged another petition filed by BJP leader Kapil Mishra, seeking similar directions. Mishra has urged the Supreme Court to issue directions to the Centre to make a mechanism to take strict action and prosecute the fake complainants and pay adequate compensation to the victims of wrongful prosecutions.

Both the petitions were filed after the case of Vishnu Tiwari came to light, a Rape accused who was recently acquitted by Allahabad High Court after spending 20 years in Jail.

As per Upadhyay's plea, the absence of effective statutory or legal scheme for providing mandatory compensatory scheme to victims of wrongful malicious prosecutions and incarceration of innocents, infringes fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 14 and 21 of the constitution.

He pointed out that filing of false cases often leads to suicides of innocents, who are made victims of police and prosecutorial misconduct.

He submitted that the Centre cannot shy away from its obligation to safeguard and protect the right to life, liberty and dignity to every citizen. Therefore, it is for the Centre to evolve suitable statutory and legal mechanism to address and safeguard citizen rights guaranteed under Article 21 against wrongful prosecutions and incarceration of innocents by addressing the miscarriage of justice by suitable amendments in the IPC and CrPC on utmost priority.

Further, according to the petitioner, till the amendments are done, it is the need of hour to have a specific guidelines and for the State and its agencies to prevent such police and prosecutorial misconduct which is rampantly destroying lives of innocents who are falsely implicated and then acquitted after years of turmoil in the guise of "prosecution could not prove beyond doubt" and never served justice due to disdainful approach of State which is a factor for pendency of over 40 million cases.

Mishra also emphasized that the law is being misused and abused by filing of fake and malicious complaints.

He vented that no action is taken against fake complainants in the absence of an effective statutory/legal scheme for providing mandatory compensatory relief to victims of wrongful production.

He also demanded that a mechanism should be put in place for speedy disposal of the cases pertaining to the under-trial prisoners, who are prosecuted in special acts and that, guidelines be framed for the under-trial prisoners to decide their cases in a time-bound manner.

Vishnu Tiwari Case

The Allahabad High Court recently acquitted a Rape Accused, who suffered 20 years of incarceration in connection with a false rape case filed against him by a woman owing to an alleged land dispute.

A Division Bench of the High Court while passing the order for the release of one Vishnu, set aside the conviction order passed by a Trial Court in 2003, under Sections 376 and 506 of IPC and Section 3(2)(v) read with Section 3(1)(xii) of the Scheduled Casts and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

It held, "We are unable to convince ourselves with the submission made by learned AGA for State that she has been a victim of atrocity as well rape and, therefore, the accused should not be leniently dealt with."

The Bench also expressed displeasure that a defective appeal was not cured for a period of 16 long years. It observed,

"Most unfortunate, aspect of this litigation is that the appeal was preferred through jail. The matter remained as a defective matter for a period of 16 years and, therefore, we normally do not mention defective appeal number but we have mentioned the same."