Passage Based Questions: Legal Aptitude - 25 | Passage Based Questions for CLAT Preparation PDF Download

Direction: Read the passage carefully and answer the given questions.
The intention of the police should be to reduce crime and not to kill criminals, they kill one accused and in the process of revenge, 100 others are born. At the outset, it is significant to mention that the Indian Penal Code or the Code of Criminal Procedure doesn’t contain any provision which completely empowers a police officer to encounter a criminal irrespective of the seriousness of the crime committed by the person. Conversely, there are few provisions that may be taken so as to devolve the officers with the authority to work against criminals embracing the authority to use force against criminals. For instance; Section 46 of the CRPC allows the police to arrest any person by all the means who evade the arrest forcibly and section 100 IPC talks about Right to Private Defence. Also, in Public Union for Civil Liberties v Union of India, the apex court has observed that “if the version of the police with respect to the incident in question were true there could have been no question of any interference by Court. Nobody can say that the police should wait till they are shot at. It is for the force on the spot to decide when to act, how to act, and where to act. It is not for the Court to say how the criminals should be fought” This law suggests that the Apex Court has given certain liberty to the police officers to safeguard themselves while on duty.
However, In the case of “Om Prakash vs the State of Jharkhand,” the apex court has stated that “This court has repeatedly admonished trigger happy police personnel, who liquidate criminals and project the incident as an encounter. Such killings must be deprecated. They are not recognized as legal by our criminal justice administration system. They amount to State-sponsored terrorism.” This clearly states that the apex court does not support encounters in any form. The Supreme Court has also focused on the right to life of the accused. In the case of Sathyavani Ponrai v Samuel Raj, the Apex Court has focused on the investigation of the counter and said that “Free and Fair Investigation and Trial is enshrined in Article 14, 21 and 39-A of the Constitution of India. It is the duty of the state to ensure that every citizen of the country should have a free and fair investigation and trial.” Further, it also held that the right to a free and fair investigation is not only available to victims but also to the accused depending on the facts of the case. Hence, the police should always be held responsible for their actions against the law and the grievousness of the crime committed by the accused should not affect the way how they should be treated by the police and police must take any defence in name of the heinous crime. Also, in case of Nandini Sundar & Ors vs State Of Chattisgarh: “the very essence of constitutionalism is also that no organ of the state may arrogate to itself powers beyond what is specified in the Constitution”. Hence, to conclude it is suggested that to curtail this widespread criminal practice there must be a collaborative effort on various fronts such as the societal, legal institutional, etc. The idea should be to reduce such heinous crimes and not to remove criminals from society after killing them. One must not celebrate extra-judicial killings.