HC directives, law flouted in rape case trial
The judges of all Women and Children Repression (Prevention) Tribunals flouted the High Court directives issued four years ago asking the judges to finish the trials of rape and murder mandatorily in 180 days as the law stipulates.
On October 7, the bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Md Mostafizur Rahman, which issued the directive on December 5, 2016, expressed dismay over the government’s non-compliance in ensuring the verdicts of the ongoing trials causing a backlog of cases relating to rape, torture and sexual harassment against women.
The trials of 1,64,551 cases for crimes committed against women and children are now pending with tribunals and courts across the country according to the Supreme Court statistics as on March 31, 2019.
Out of the cases, the statistics said, the trial of 38,006 cases was pending for over five years.
Trial of 1,217 cases stayed following higher court’s order, said the statistics.
Additional attorney general SM Munir told New Age on Thursday that the attorney general office would soon take an initiative to resume trial of the cases stayed after finding them out.
Law minister Anisul Huq told New Age on Thursday that the government planned to amend the law to award death sentence as maximum punishment for rapists.
The minister came with the remarks in the wake of the on-going protest erupted across the country after the video on the torture and sexual harassment of a Noakhali women went viral on October 4.
On Wednesday the High Court expressed annoyance at the government for not implementing another directive given in the 2016 verdict to form a monitoring committee to prevent rape.
‘We are passing directives time and again but the authorities are carrying on without following our orders, the court said.
The bench said that if any judge was asked to explain for his failure to finish the trial, he then lobbied with the law ministry without giving any explanation about it.
The court came up with the observation on Wednesday while it asked the Dhaka Public Safety Disturbance Crime Prevention Tribunal judge Chaman Begum Chowdhury to dispose of in three months the trial of a murder case pending with the court for 32 years.
The case was filed against Mohammad Al Amin with the Lalbagh police station for killing Sima Mohammadi, 20, at her Jagannath Saha road home on April 26, 1988.
The High Court had expressed disappointment over non-compliance of directives, one of which required the tribunal judges to submit separate reports to the Supreme Court’s registrar general explaining their failure to complete in 180 days the trials in cases relating to crimes against women and children.
The SC officials told New Age on Thursday that no judges of the 54 Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunals in the country complied with the directives in four years.
Under the High Court directives, the government require to form a district monitoring committee with additional district magistrate, additional superintendent of police for administration, the civil surgeon’s representative and the tribunal’ public prosecutor to ensure the presence of the witnesses and their security during the trials.
The public prosecutor will be coordinator of the monitoring committee and submit the report monthly to the Supreme Court and the ministries of home and law explaining the committee’s activities, said the High Court in the verdict.
The court said that the monitoring committee will be accountable for the state’s failure to produce any witness before the tribunals on the scheduled days.
The court also said that the monitoring committees will observe whether or not the witnesses were summoned quickly.
The court said that the tribunal will recommend departmental action against the official witnesses like magistrate, police, doctor, and other experts if they do not appear before the court without satisfactory reason and will order for halting their salaries if it deems such an action necessary.
The court expected that the government would formulate a law immediately to protect the witnesses.
The court ordered the office of the High Court’s registry to send copy of the directives to the ministries of home, law and the SC register general.
The government did not take any step for failure of the tribunals to complete the trial of the accused in 180 days, even though incidents of rape have now become reached the level of an epidemic in the country.
The bench directive prescribes departmental action against public prosecutors, investigation officers and judges of tribunals to redress the delay in justice caused by continued failure to complete trials of crimes against women and children in a timely manner.
The Women and Children Repression (Prevention) Act, 2000 sets out that the tribunals will finish the trial of such cases in 180 days after framing the charges.
The law also has a provision that asks the tribunal judge and all concerned to submit separate reports to the High Court or the government, as the case may be, explaining their failure to complete trials on time.
The ministry officials told New Age that no judge or public prosecutors were punished for non-compliance of the directives for their failure to finish the trials in cases relating to sexual assault and harassment against women.
Rights organisation Ain O Salish Kendra data show that between January and September of the ongoing year, 975 girls and women were raped and 43 of them were killed after rape and 12 others committed suicide after rape.
During the same time, the data show, 161 girls and women were sexually harassed and 12 of them committed suicide after facing sexual harassment while 12 people, including nine men and three women, were killed for protesting at sexual harassment.
ASK data show that 1,413 girls and women were raped in 2019, 732 in 2018, 818 in 2017, 724 in 2016 and 846 others were raped in 2015.
Data further show that 17 were killed, 15 injured and 249 others were sexually harassed in 2019, 12 killed, 26 injured and 120 others harassed in 2018, 13 killed, 58 injured and 168 manhandled in 2017 and 14 killed, 61 injured and 158 others were harassed in 2016 for protesting against stalking.
Source: New Age
