Panel to monitor state’s lawyers

Alarmed by the setbacks it has suffered in court and under fire by the Opposition, the state government on Thursday said it is appointing a committee headed by the attorney general to monitor the performance of the state’s public prosecutors.

Alarmed by the setbacks it has suffered in court and under fire by the Opposition, the state government on Thursday said it is appointing a committee headed by the attorney general to monitor the performance of the state’s public prosecutors. The announcement was made in the Legislative Council by state law minister Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil, who has faced a lot of flak for the recent embarrassments.

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The district-level committees will be headed by the district magistrate, while at the state level, the attorney general will be in charge. The recent months have seen a spate of cases where the state has been left red-faced. Several experts and critics blame the government pleaders for making a poor representation of the government’s stands.

The numbers prove that the state’s prosecutors have not seen much success: their success ratio is only 17 per cent.

“If you look at all the criminal cases filed in the state, nearly 87 per cent of the accused get away scot-free,” Congress MLC Mohan Joshi pointed out.

Joshi blames increasing political interference in the appointment of public prosecutors and lack of coordination between prosecutors and investigating officers as the reason.

“Any public prosecutor who loses more than 50% of the cases shouldn’t be put on the state panel again,” he said. The state has come under criticism for the Best-5 policy case, in which its stand was not accepted by the high court and the lowering of the death sentence of the Khairlanji accused.