A Criminologist's Diary-39

A Criminologist’s Diary-39

Account Criminology and Criminal Ju...

CRIMES of LAW ABUSE or LAW ABUSE CRIMES?

“Whoever, knowing or having reason to believe that an offence has been committed intentionally omits to give any information respecting that offence which he is legally bound to give shall be punished with imprisonment of either description which may extent to six months or with fine or with both”-this is s. 202 of the Indian Penal Code-1860.This section of law received wide publicity recently and the background is as under:

A sitting Member of Parliament in the ruling Government at the center and a former Minister of a State Government in India made a public address in which he openly stated that he was a witness to a corruption case in which a Judge of the Supreme Court of India received several lakhs of Indian rupees for awarding a verdict in favour of some Abkari Bar owners. The incident took place about 18 years ago. The statement was made at a time when many high ranking judicial functionaries were under fire- were accused of corruption and malpractices. Anyway, his open statement got fire and became a wild fire. Many political higher-ups too were alleged to have been involved in the above illegal transaction.

Many political leaders, some advocates, a few vested interests raised their voice and demanded the registration of a criminal case against the sitting Member of the Parliament and the section of law was the one quoted above for not informing the commission of a crime ‘in time’. Moreover, they wanted the registration of the case only against that particular M.P. and nobody else who was alleged to have been present or received the corruption money, offered the corruption money etc. I am not at all interested to enter into the merit of the case, nevertheless I have the following doubts or questions to clarify or ask and certainly, they need answers.

(1) In cases of torture, manipulation of records, concoction of evidence ,tutoring of witnesses to give false testimony before a court of law, several police officials know the commission of such crimes and no one files an information to register criminal cases for investigation. In fact, they are bound to inform the commission of such crimes. There are several judgements from the criminal courts stating that such manipulations have taken place, yet everybody including the courts of law is silent. Why?

(2) In corruption cases, many in Government offices know about the offering of money, corruption money splitting, corruption money fixing etc. Without such knowledge, no corruption in an organized way can or will take place. Every one working in such offices are legally bound to give information of such offences.

(3) In political corruption, several politicians know the extent and intensity of the crimes committed. In domestic violence, many know about wife-beating, torture of women, dowry harassment etc., in road accidents, many are aware of the culprits and thus the final question is-“if cases are going to be registered for omitting to report crimes known to a person, then how many crimes will have to be registered everyday throughout the Country?”

What is the relevance of registering a case when the offence itself is not established? First of all, one must establish the commission of the offence and then only one gets the cause of action to proceed against those who kept silence about it. Even in such situations, a case should be registered against all alleged to have been involved in the transaction and not against the one who made the statement.

Anyway, remember that the section of law given in the Indian Penal Code-1860 was not at all intended for the abuse of the law for making political mileage. This sort of law abuse or abuse of law for parochial or partisan interests is called ‘CRIMES of LAW ABUSES’ or ‘LAW ABUSE CRIMES’. New and newer crimes are added to the old Penal Code of India-1860 which itself is a museum piece.