SC: Gangsters jump state to dodge arrest, need one agency for entire NCR

New Delhi: Taking note of an increasingly familiar pattern of gangsters moving across jurisdictions in Delhi and its surroundings, Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to consider enacting a legislation empowering a single agency to pursue organised crime syndicate members in Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR) states unhindered and produce them before a special court in Delhi, Noida, Faridabad or Gurgaon.

“Why not a law to cater to the entire National Capital Region? Create exclusive special courts for central laws like UAPA, PMLA and NDPS Act in Delhi, Gurgaon or Noida, where the offences committed under the central laws would be tried irrespective of the location of the criminal incidents,” CJI Surya Kant told additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati.Gang members take undue advantage of jurisdiction issues: SC

Taking stock of the progress made by the Centre and states towards constituting exclusive special courts to try offences probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), a bench of CJI Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi highlighted the modus operandi of gangsters who commit crime in one state and move to another to dodge arrest, delay trial, and take advantage of the delay to get bail.

“If a gangster commits 10 offences in Haryana, five in Rajasthan and two in Delhi, the NIA can be asked to investigate which would trigger invocation of the special law to enable trial of the accused in one court in NCR,” Justice Bagchi elaborated.

Bhati suggested that SC could take this issue up suo motu and provide a framework. The bench said it is a legislative exercise.

In its order, the bench said, “In matters relating to grave offences under central penal laws, members of organised criminal gangs take undue advantage of jurisdictional issues in NCR. For prompt police action, there should be a competent court at one location where such gangsters are tried. In absence of this, hardened criminals get the benefit of bail due to delayed trials at different locations, which may not be in the interest of society and the public... It would be desirable that an effective law is enacted to deal with such situations for optimum utilisation of the legal architecture.”

SC had earlier directed that no existing court should be designated as special court as these exclusive special courts should be vested with trials of NIA cases and not saddled with routine workload.

Bhati informed SC that financial approval has been received from the Centre to the proposal to reimburse states Rs 1 crore each for recurring and non-recurring expenditures towards establishment of exclusive special courts to try NIA cases.

Additional solicitor general S D Sanjay informed the court that the Delhi govt has decided to set up 16 exclusive special courts in three months for trial of cases under the central penal law.
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