MADURAI: The police of ten southern districts have filed chargesheets in 202 Pocso Act cases within 59 days of the cases being registered, leading to speedy trial and conviction. When a chargesheet is filed within 59 days, bail is denied to the accused by default.
Department sources said since the registration of cases in sexual crimes and the arrest of the accused cannot be considered comprehensive, they also take adequate measures to ensure that victims of these crimes are aware of their rights. “When the accused involved in a case files a bail application, the victim, parent or complainant are informed about the date of the bail hearing in advance.
This enables them or someone appointed by them to appear in person during the bail hearing and oppose the same. It also empowers the victims to have a say in the bail consideration process. The police alert the complainant about the respective case developments in court through SMS,” added sources.
IG South Zone Asra Garg said the police were asked to make sure the chargesheets of Pocso cases were to be filed in court within 60 days. “The police are also maintaining three colouring patterns to track the status of the charge sheet through Google Spreadsheet. If the charge sheet was is not filed or ready within 45 days, the status would be green. The colour would be yellow if it is not ready between 46-50 days. On the 51st day, the status would be marked red and the team would know they have only a few days left. These are closely monitored at the SP and DIG level,” he added.
SP (Virudhunagar) R Srinivasaperumal said they have a special system called Trial Monitoring System (TMS) to track the case progress including that of Pocso Act cases. In many cases, the punishments are up to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment, he said.
SP (Madurai rural) R Shiva Prasad said if the department would not file the chargesheet within 60 days, it would help the accused get default bail.
Convictions
The suspects in 91 cases got convicted from January 1 to April 30 this year. Of this, 39 cases were in Virudhunagar, 25 in Dindigul, eight in Thoothukudi, five in Tenkasi, four in Madurai (rural), three each in Theni and Sivaganga, two in Ramanathapuram, one each in Kanniyakumari and Tirunelveli (rural). 20 convictions were for cases booked last year: 18 in Virudhunagar, one each in Dindigul and Theni.
“The sensitive handling of victims and their families, making them feel like a part of the criminal justice process, assisting them in initiating the compensation process and updating the victims about the trial developments have been possible because of the joint efforts of the police personnel and sub-divisional officers supervised closely by the SPs and DIGs,” said the IG.