UPENDRA NATH CHAUDHARY Vs. HIGH COURT OF PATANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS writ petition, filed. in public interest, brings to the notice of the court certain practice being followed by the trial Courts in this State (Sessions Judges, additional Sessions Judges and Judicial magistrates) that is patently illegal, besides being highly undesirable from a social point of view. It is stated that the Trial Courts nave all but stopped using the provisions of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958; that even when the lower Courts proceed under the provisions of the Probation of Offenders Act, in cases few and far between, they do so without calling for a report from the probation Officer and thus act in violation of Section 4 (2) of the Act, further that the trial Courts mostly act under Section 360 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter referred to as 'the Code') taking it as a substitute and an alternate to the provisions of the Probation of Offenders Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act' ).

(2.) THE petitioner is a retired Principal probation Officer. He is about 75 years old and he retired from service about 15 years ago. He states that the proceedings before the trial Courts appear to have undergone a vast change since he was in service. While he was in service, in one year on an average 1000-1200 pre-sentence reports, were called for by the Courts as provided in sub-section (2) of Section 4 of the Act. Now, the total number of reports called for from Probation officers all over the State does not add up to 1000 though there is undeniably a large increase in the number of criminal cases. The number of supervision orders passed under Section 4 (3) of the Act similarly has been greatly reduced and has come to an insignificant level. The statement made in the writ petition is fully supported by the chart annexed to the counter affidavit filed on behalf of the State showing the numbers of pre-sentence enquiry reports called for and supervision orders made by the Courts as received by Probation Officers all over the State in the years 2004, 2005 and 2006. In 2004, the total number of orders asking for pre-sentence enquiry reports for the whole State was 1300 and the number of supervision orders was 150. In 2005, the number of orders for pre-sentence enquiry was 1262 and of supervision orders 97. In 2006, the number of pre-sentence enquiry orders was 104 and of supervision orders 104. Thus, there can be no doubt that the act in this State has almost become confined only to the Statute Book.

(3.) IT is further stated in the writ petition that even in the very few cases where a trial court proceeds under the Act, it mostly does so without calling for a pre-sentence report from the Probation Officer. The Court has no independent means to know the antecedents of the convicted accused. As a result, it sometimes happens that persons previously convicted of serious offences are released on probation or even simply after admonition. In the writ petition, some instances are given from the Patna City and Danapur courts where a number of accused, convicted of relatively serious offences, were released on probation without any report from the Probation Officer.