Punish officers for missing rape case files: Court

New Delhi, March 5 (IANS) The Delhi High Court has directed the district and sessions judge to initiate action against officers responsible for non-availability of files of a 20-year-old rape case.

A division bench of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice V.K. Jain also constituted a three-member committee to examine the practices and systems prevailing in connection with the custody, maintenance, handing over, taking over and disposal of judicial record.

The bench also asked the committee to suggest ways to prevent such incidents and file a compliance report before the high court registrar within three months.

"The district and sessions judge (headquarters) shall forthwith initiate action in accordance with law, against the official(s) found responsible by district and additional sessions judge, in-charge (south district), for the loss of the judicial file of the aforesaid case," the court said.

It directed a district and sessions judge to "reconstruct the records" of the 20-year-old rape case whose judicial and police files were missing.

The matter was related to a 16-year-old girl's allegedly raped in central Delhi's Connaught Place by Karan Pal in June 1993.

During the proceedings the case file went missing and the accused was released on bail Feb 23, 1994.

The above remark by the Delhi High Court is most appropriate.

We have seen umpteen cases where files go missing and for which criminals go unpunished.

The government gives the salaries to its staff to keep all its documents safely.

If these go missing, the concerned persons should be punished.