City RTI activist R K Garg thoroughly chalked down the Chandigarh Police website and noticed that there is a major time gap between the FIR and challan presiding date in court as a result of which victims are suffering.
This glaring delay often made victims fall into trap of further ill practices, said Garg. He made a presentation in which the processing of pending/under investigation FIRs of Chandigarh Police is reflecting a glaring delay of year after year.
Punjab and Haryana Bar Council chairman Minderjit Singh Yadav told The Daily Guardian that there are time limits for police to file challan before the court after an FIR is made. “There are different time limits for different laws and acts. Mostly, the time limit to file a chargesheet is related to the arrest of the accused in the case. The charge sheet is to be filed within 60 days from the date of arrest of the accused in cases triable by lower courts and 90 days in cases triable by session courts.”
Garg argued that the law is not followed in its true spirit and charge sheets are not filed for years and the complainant is never informed of the delay and as a result the accused roams free and complainant remains high and dry.
To know the fate of a large number of FIRs in Chandigarh Police, The Daily Guardian checked the Chandigarh Police website. There are 17 police stations in Chandigarh, out of which 11 were working before 2013 and six others were added in 2015. After noting down the data, it is observed some FIRs registered in 2013 are still under investigation about PS which was working before 2013 and some FIRs registered in 2016 are under investigation in PS which came into existence in 2015, including the Women and Child Support Unit of Chandigarh police.
There is a huge number of such cases that are still waiting for their fate. To know the current period details leaving aside 2021, the data from 1.1.2020 to 31.12.2020 and it is found that many FIRs registered in 2020 are still under investigation. It is also important to note that there is no time limit fixed for disposing of the complaints and a large number of complaints die and those who survive take two to three years to lodge the FIR.
Case 1: Marriage in 2010, complaint made with WCSU in 2018, FIR in 2020, chargesheet filed on Feb 22 after 25 months. The case took four years to reach courts while the victim suffers and the accused was still free on bail.
Case 2: Marriage in 2009, complaint made with WCSU in 2018, case closed, investigation reopened in Sep 2018. Investigation done in Oct 2020, FIR in August 2021, chargesheet not filed yet, four years have gone and victim is suffering and accused still free on bail.