Filing of chargesheet in the court is often missed by the police in Palamu. It is on an average just two in a month. The chargesheet is to be filed within a stipulated period of time. For cases in the judicial magistrate court, the period is 60 days, failing which the accused behind the bars is to get the bail which is called compulsive bail or statutory bail or bail on defect.
Similarly for cases running in the sessions court the period of filing chargesheet is 90 days.
An assistant public prosecutor requesting anonymity admitted that police do miss on occasions to file chargesheet in time here resulting in the accused walking in free. A sub inspector of police said the hands of police are too full of works and thus meeting the deadline becomes difficult at times and this causes delay in filing chargesheet in time.
The secretary of the Palamu legal services authority KK Jha wherein there is a panel of lawyers to fight legal cases of the poor litigants whose income is less than one lakh said the poor litigants do tell us about police failure in not filing the chargesheet in time here but added the instances are few of this kind.
The Pioneer found that there are factors behind it. First is police’s abundant pre occupation here with extremism and crime that leaves little room for it to meet the deadline. Second pressure from above either from police officials or from politicians force police to go slow and miss the deadline of filing of chargesheet in order to pave the way for the accused in jail to come out. Improper investigation and inadequate collection of evidence also hampers the filing of chargesheet in time said sources in the police here.