Orientation of prosecuteers, HC launds Chief Secretary, DGP

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court appreciated the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police for taking effective steps in conducting the orientation programme for the Public Prosecutors and sensitising them on the effective investigation while hearing a criminal appeal petition connected with the issue.

The case was listed before a division bench of the Madras High Court comprising Justice MS Ramesh and Justice N Anand Venkatesh. The State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohammed Jinnah submitted the status report asked by the MHC, on behalf of the Director General of Police (DGP).

The status report had particulars of an investigation conducted by the specialised wing in 11 taluk police stations and also in the Coimbatore commissionerate. The creation of a special wing will be extended to other taluks/cities and already steps have been taken in this regard, noted the submission.

After reading the report, the bench said that there is a visible improvement in the completion of the investigation on time and filing of the final reports before the concerned jurisdictional courts in some serious offences like murder, dacoity. We expect that the DGP will identify some more police stations and expand the operations of the specialised Investigation Wing.

The finalisation of the digital evidence manual is a very important step in ensuring that the procedure is followed methodically in all cases involving electronic evidence which cannot be hastened and it involves a lot of application of mind, said the bench. Further, the bench granted four weeks of time to the DGP to finalise the digital evidence manual. The bench posted the case to July 21, 2023 for further hearing.

The Madurai bench of Madras High Court had earlier directed the Tamil Nadu government and DGP to respond to an order for establishing a specialised wing to improve the quality of investigation in a criminal appeal petition.