'Civil cases garbed as criminal to evade fees'

KOLKATA: At a time when there is an on-going agitation against increase in legal charges for raising revenues, the West Bengal Prohibition Committee has suggested that better management of court fees could bring in a lot of money to the state''s coffers.
Holding a press meet on Wednesday, WBPC vice-president and advocate Dipankar Mukherjee claimed that many of the pending criminal cases were actually civil cases disguised in order to evade legitimate court fees.
"Proper segregation of civil and criminal cases are necessary. This will help in fetching at least 75 per cent more revenue for the state government," he said.
Mukherjee alleged that to evade court fees, many litigants go for a criminal case by simply lodging a complaint with the police. "In the process the case is given a criminal colour and investigated by suppression of documents and the magistrate is often misled," Mukherjee explained.
According to him, the process causes a heavy loss to the state government by draining public revenue which goes to pay the fees of public prosecutors and salaries of magistrates and police officers. "This need to be stopped and the state government must act on this issue," he said.