Delhi High Court’s Ruling on Public Disclosure of Proclaimed Offenders and Implementation Guidelines

Case Reported by Garima Bairagi

IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

NEETU SINGH ….. Petitioner

versus

STATE OF NCT OF DELHI…………Respondent

Coram: Hon’ble Justice Mr. Talwant Singh

Brief facts

A bail application was filed by the petitioner. On 28/04/2022  the Court passed the order denying the bail to her. The learned counsel from the side petitioner contended that the petitioner was declared a proclaimed offender at her back and without her knowledge. The police tried to serve her at her old Ghaziabad address whereas the property in question was already taken over by the bank in some recovery proceedings. During the hearing of the bail, it came to the notice of this court that in ‘Sunil Tyagi V. Govt. of NCT of Delhi & Am. Certain directions were issued by this Court as to how to deal with the process of declaring the persons as proclaimed offenders and the steps to be taken thereafter. The Court directed to form a committee headed by Principal District and Sessions Judge having all the Stakeholders.

Issues

How to bring the information in Public domain regarding the proclaimed offenders in any case so that the public can assist bringing the offender to the court.

Arguments (Petitioner)

Dr. Arun Mohan who was appointed as Amicus Curaie on 16/11/2022. He submitted an interim report having a Working Draft  suggesting some legislative changes by adding section 82A which will be as follows:

“82A Declaration as Proclaimed Offender or Proclaimed Person (1) Where, despite procedures u/§ 82, the person [p-i-q] has not appeared or been arrested, the police officer shall file an Affidavit stating that the necessary formalities have been completed, the person [p-i-q]‟s particulars & address has been re-verified, descriptions are clear, and that there is no impediment to the person being declared as Proclaimed Offender or a Proclaimed Person-RbL (as the case may be).

(2) Upon receiving the Affidavit under sub-section (1), and being satisfied, the Court may issue an Order declaring the person named to be a „Proclaimed Offender‟ or a „Proclaimed Person-RbL‟.

 (3) It is only upon the order of the Court under sub-section (2) that the name of the person with some descriptive details may be uploaded by the police on the Website – placed in public domain.

(4) The list as uploaded (and appearing on the Website) will be periodically verified by the police.

(5) A person whose name is appearing in the uploaded list as a Proclaimed Offender or Proclaimed Person-RbL may be arrested and produced before a Magistrate.

 (6) Once the person has appeared, the Court may, upon an application, either direct addition of a suffix „since deleted‟ (which will operate as a clearance) or simply direct removal as it thinks proper.

 (7) In addition to the general power to make rules, for efficient operation of these procedures, such practice directions, guidelines, and forms may be issued by the High Court as it deems proper.”

He also presented a Sequence of Operations as follows:

1. Information gathering from – courts, record-rooms, police-stations

 2. Internal uploading only

3. Verification of descriptive details from existing police and court records

4. Sent to DL-RP-IC for (only) electronic search: 1. Open source (Google) 2. CCTNS After search they send it – with material as found by them appended – to the concerned police station

5. Back at police station, ground level verification is carried out and some descriptive details are also added

6. Police Station [SHO / IO] certifies on affidavit and sends it to court for orders

7. Court – based on certification – orders public-uploading of the Required Person’s name with some descriptive details

Held

1. The committee constituted shall continue to meet periodically and monitor the implementation of this courts’ orders. And shall submit its report every 3 months.

2.  The NIC shall develop the needy software and provide the web infrastructure.

3. The Director/In-charge of Inter-Operational Criminal Justice System (hereinafter referred to as ‘ICJS’) shall also coordinate with the monitoring committee and shall ensure that all possible technical and tactical support is provided to this project.

4. Initially the data shall only be uploaded on the internal portal and shall only be accessed by authorized person.

5. Delhi Police will be responsible for uploading the data of cases registered by them and of all private complaints to court the Court shall upload the data.

6. In the initial trial stage it is only applicable to Delhi Police only and not any other investigating agency. The trial result will define further implementation.