Following stern directives of the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court to act against absconding accused, Chandrapur Police have obtained warrants against 158 such accused persons. In fact, 52 absconding accused have been arrested so far, two surrendered before the court while seven accused passed away during pendency of criminal trial against them.

The information was furnished before the High Court by Additional PP Anand Deshpande during the hearing of a suo-motu proceeding initiated by the High Court. Nodal officer API Bobde who was present during the hearing informed that total 233 cases were identified and efforts are on to intensify search for them. A division bench consisting of Justice Ravi Deshpande and Justice Milind Jadhav asked the District Government Pleader to raise the issue with Principal District Judge and expedite the process.

According to information furnished so far, Nagpur police has obtained warrants in 393 cases against such accused persons. This includes 347 non-bailable, eight bailable and proclamations in 38 cases. In Nagpur city, 982 cases of absconding accused have been identified while in eleven districts of Vidarbha, this number has been pegged at 2,789. These criminal cases are pending since last 10 years since the accused are shown absconding. If convicted, the accused can be sentenced to more than three years imprisonment, but the cases are stalled since accused could not be traced.

To tackle these pending cases, the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court has initiated a suo-motu petition to streamline this issue. If the accused persons are not arrested within a reasonable time, it poses a serious threat to internal peace and security of the society, the High Court had observed while asking top cops to take urgent steps to search the absconding accused and produce them before the court to face the pending trial.

Initially, in Nagpur, 1632 such cases were identified, and detailed scrutiny revealed that in 89 cases, the accused had passed away pending trial. In the latest progress report, the High Court has been informed that 92 cases included in the list, are already disposed of and hence, the list has been reduced to 1540 cases. The number of accused from Nagpur city who died during pendency is now 99 while in Nagpur rural this number is six. Further enquiry in respect of death of remaining accused is going on, informed Additional Public Prosecutor Anand Deshpande who represented the authorities.

As many as 645 criminals from city and Nagpur district facing criminal trials are absconding and could not be traced during a special drive conducted by the city police last month. There were 3349 cases which were languishing since accused were untraceable. The city police could locate and serve summons to 1817 persons facing criminal trials including bailable warrants in 789 cases, non-bailable warrant in 713 cases and notice in 78 cases. So far, 228 accused could not be located while in 1532 action has been initiated. In case of Nagpur

district, 417 accused could not be traced, and special cells have been constituted to catch the accused who are avoiding the trial and evading service of warrant.

The High Court directed authorities including Principal District and Sessions Judge to conduct periodical meetings to upgrade the list and directed police machinery to expedite the process to obtain warrants in respect of other accused persons.