In fact we are privy to many strange things in our country in recent years but things like a proxy prisoner serving for a man out of the country is highly sensational. Such deception to law and aberration to justice by real culprit is highly slanderous to our judiciary but in our view it is not possible without collaboration of police and court lawyers. This is a dangerous commission of crime and omission of justice that needs to be thoroughly investigated to stop the repeat of such judicial scandal and punish those involved in it.
What needs to be pointed out here is that Media reports often highlight such incidents of faulty dispensation of justice but our jail administration and lower courts seem to have not taken seriously to plug the loopholes. The story in hand said the Speedy Tribunal of Sylhet sentenced three personas to life in June 2012 in absentia for abducting a young man. The convicts however remained in the hiding until October 11, 2015 when one of them surrendered to the court. But the man was actually a proxy but the court accepted him as the real culprit and sent him to jail. Nobody such as police, court’s officers and lawyers of the case from either side raised any doubt when an innocent was in fact swapped for a murder culprit in defiance of the rule of law. Many doubted it was outcome of a deal in which police and court officials may have acted together in exchange of financial benefits.
Disclosure said the proxy was convinced to go to jail for a big amount of money and a promise for bail within three months from the High Court. He would be then taken to Saudi Arabia on a hefty pay. But as the move for the bail was producing no result, the proxy at one point broke the truth. He is now calling for his release.
In fact prisoners serving jail without trial or as proxy are many in the country – they are victims of faulty miscarriage of justice. On the other hand a section of lawyers and court officers are at work at every level from High Court to Lower Court to defalcate court orders to release prisoners for money. They even put replacement for convicts in many cases.
In our view it is a big challenge to our judiciary destroying the credibility of our justice system and hindering the administration of the rule of law to punish the criminals and protect the innocents. Such cases must be investigated and culprits must be punished.
