The Supreme Court on Thursday disposed of two separate petitions seeking directions to the government to frame guidelines to compensate the victims of wrongful prosecution and take strict action against fake complaints in criminal cases.
A Bench of chief justice-designate Uday Umesh Lalit and SR Bhat held that the issue involves law-making in the nature of legislation that will create a lot of complications. It said that it’s not possible for the court to utilise its processes.
The apex court, though, drew the attention of the Centre and its relevant agencies to take appropriate action as it saw no reason to entertain the pleas any longer.
In March 2021, it had issued notice to the Centre on the separate pleas filed by BJP advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and BJP leader Kapil Mishra, while refusing to issue notices to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the state governments.
Senior advocate Vijay Hansaria, appearing in the matter, submitted that there are no safeguards in case of malicious prosecution and so his plea’s disposal will be an injustice to the victims.
Upadhyay had sought directions to the Centre, all states, and Union Territories to frame and implement guidelines to compensate victims of “wrongful prosecution” through government machinery.
Mishra, in his plea, filed through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, had sought directions to the Centre for framing guidelines to ensure strict action against fake complainants in criminal cases and for compensating victims of such wrongful prosecutions.
The petitions were filed in the apex court in the backdrop of a case in which the Allahabad High Court had in January declared a man, earlier convicted in a rape case and jailed for around 20 years, innocent observing that the motive behind the FIR was related to a land dispute.
