Revision as of 20:04, 18 December 2014

Evidence: Media interview of witness, admissibility of

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Thursday allowed the plea of Nirbhaya gangrape accused to use as evidence a CD containing TV interview of the victim’s male friend. Justice G P Mittal allowed the plea of accused Ram Singh and his brother Mukesh and set aside the trial court’s order by which they were not allowed to exhibit the CD as evidence. The trial court had said the CD was not an admissible piece of evidence.

Justice Mittal directed the trial court to “permit the accused to use the CD as evidence”. The accused had challenged the trial court’s order which did not allow them to “exhibit, place on record and to play the impugned CD” on the ground that this was not an admissible piece of evidence.

The high court had reserved its verdict in the case on March 5.

Earlier, Delhi Police had opposed the accused’ plea, saying the media interview of a witness is inadmissible evidence under the law. The police said the CD was prepared in violation of a CrPC provision that restrains media coverage of the trial and inquiry proceedings related to a rape case.

Pending rape cases

Over 31,000 rape cases pending in High Courts

The Times of India

December 17 2014

Pending rape cases and conviction rate (2011-2013)

Crimes against women are on the rise, and so is the pendency of such cases in the subordinate and high courts across the country. In the last three years, number of cases relating to sexual harassment, kidnapping and abduction including rape has gone up from 2.28 lakh to 3.09 lakh. Over 31,000 rape cases are pending in high courts alone.

Concerned at increasing pendency of cases of crime against women and children, the law ministry has written to the state governments and the chief justices of HCs to constitute fast track courts for speedy trial of such cases. The conviction rate in these cases, however, came down from 27% to 22% between 2011 and 2013.

After the December 2012 Delhi rape case, the government had asked the state gov ernments to allocateTOTAL (ALL S additional funds for setting up of fast track courts (FTCs) for trials related to crime against women and children.

This has resulted in at least 318 FTCs being set up by various HCs, designating them exclusively for trials of cases related to crime against women. Madhya Pradesh has set up highest FTCs for women and children (50), followed by West Bengal (48).

There are 310 cases of sexual harassment pending in the Supreme Court while it has L STATES) 318 disposed of 1,455 since 2009. In the HCs, the pendency of rape r cases is as high as 31,386 while e 15,453 have been disposed of in the last three years.