SHILLONG: Though the State government had promised to set up the Directorate of Prosecution in the context of rise in crimes coupled with shoddy investigation, especially on matters related to crime against women, the actual operation of the Directorate has been pending for the last 8 years.
As per a notification on April 15, 2008, the Meghalaya Governor had approved setting up of the Directorate of Prosecution.
Later, there were differences of opinion on whether the Directorate of Prosecution should be under the Law department or the Home (Police).
An official with the Law department said on Sunday that the Directorate will be set up soon under Home department.
However, there is still divided opinion on the matter since the Directorate of Prosecution is under the department of Law and Justice in many other states in the country as the CrPC makes it mandatory that a person heading the Directorate of Prosecution should be from the legal background.
But, official sources said now the government is planning to bring up the administration of Directorate of Prosecution under the Home department.
Earlier in the first week of June, the High Court of Meghalaya had stated that “it is difficult to appreciate that when the Governor of Meghalaya had approved the setting up of the Directorate of Prosecution as way back as on April 15, 2008, as to why the same is yet to be established and why the regular cadre of prosecutors is not available”.
As per the plan of the government, the Directorate of Prosecution would be responsible for conducting the prosecution in all the courts in the State and would have the liberty of scrutinizing the evidence in all the cases prior to their filing in the courts.
The Directorate would be headed by a director, who would be the overall supervisory authority of the prosecution in the State.
