THE breaking of the news that an innocent person wrongly convicted to serve the life term on alleged ground of poisoning his young daughter suffered 13 years in prison for the callousness of a judge of the Satkhira court has left the nation in total shock. Media report said a the court sentenced the person in question in 2001 but the High Court later acquitted him of the charge in 2003 and ordered his release. But the Judge had acted wrongly and ordered to keep the High Court order in the record room instead of sending it to jail officials to ensure his release. As the matter came to the notice of the High Court again recently the honorable judges were shocked and declared the act illegal and also unconstitutional inasmuch as it held an innocent person in custody without fault. The court has ordered his immediate release and issued show cause to relevant authorities as to why payment of Tk 20 lakhs in compensation should not be made to the man who has lost the prime time of his life for miscarriage of justice. We appreciate the High Court order, which has come to his final rescue and also believe that he deserves the compensation. But making such payment from the public exchequer without identifying the responsibility of the person will penalize the state for the fault of an individual. In this case the Satkhira judge who is now reportedly on retirement must be held accountable and asked to pay and also explain why he has meted out such cruelty to a helpless person. It is a clear judicial misconduct and a crime and may be that he was influenced this way or that way to keep the man languishing in the jail. Allegations galore against the lower judiciary for miscarriage of justice in which innocents are punished while the guilty are set free. Preemptive arrest misusing the laws and unlawful detention of persons in jails now dominate the lower judiciary where unnecessary remand and such other degrading measures are in practice to frame a person with pre-planned cases. But the failure to release an innocent person wrongly convicted and then rightly acquitted by the High Court appears to be the biggest audacity of a lower court judge for reasons he knew the best. But he has tainted the image of the country’s judicial system as a whole and in our view he must face legal accountability in any way. The image of the lower judiciary is now at its low and the new disclosure will further erode public confidence in the rule of law. We believe that the Higher judiciary must act to restore public confidence in the justice system by taking appropriate measures that it may deem fit in this situation.
