KOCHI: There is nothing surprising in the state government’s decision to file a plea in the High Court and then in the Supreme Court to withdraw a case against the 2015 vandalism by LDF members in the state assembly given the number of persons punished under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act in similar incidents.
In the recent state assembly session, the government revealed that Rs 4.01 crore worth of damage was caused to property due to anti-government protests from 2016 to 2021. As per the data shared in the assembly, 7,318 cases had been registered for anti-government protests since 2016 in Kerala. Of these, 838 cases were registered for damaging public property under the Act during anti-government protests and 4,470 persons were booked.
Interestingly, only 85 persons had been punished under the Act in the state since 2016. In 2016, the protests caused damage to public property worth Rs 31.82 lakh. The same in 2017 was Rs 2.04 crore, the highest in the last five years. The losses to the government from 2018 to 2020 were to the tune of Rs 71.6 lakh, Rs 67.08 lakh and Rs 17.24 lakh, respectively. Till August 5 this year, public properties worth Rs 9. 5 lakh were damaged in such protests.The answer was given in a question raised by K K Rema.
Rema said she raised the question after the state government decided to withdraw the case of vandalism against then LDF MLAs. “My intention was to know whether the government would withdraw the other cases too. From the figures, it is quite clear that only a very few get punished for such offences. Let the public realise that public properties worth Rs 4 crore were damaged in five years and only 85 of the 4,470 persons booked in such cases had been punished,” she said.A senior public prosecutor said the cases registered under the Act are often not pursued seriously.
“After registering the case, the police will file a chargesheet in two to three years. Then, it would take three to four years for the trial to start. By the time, the government might have changed and the new incumbent government might decide to withdraw the case. In some instances, due to such a long procedure, the witnesses turn hostile and often evidence will not be enough for the court to find the accused persons guilty. These are regular practices in such cases,” he said.