Shillong, September 08: The Hynñiewtrep Youth Council has strongly criticised the decision to implement the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and Civil Procedure Code (CPC) in the whole State which all this while has not been implemented in places under the jurisdiction of the District Councils.
The President of the HYC who is also a lawyer, Robertjune Kharjahrin said that all this while the cases or petitions between tribals, the Court which has the authority to pass judgement are the District Council Courts except those which are booked under special acts such as the POCSO, NDPS and others which require a higher authority judge.
He said that this aim of the Government to empower the Courts has reached a point where the powers of the District Council Courts are being taken away due to the absence of proper wordings in the notification, which is also done without the understanding or consultation with the ADCs.
The leader of the HYC said that under the District Council there are Locality or Village Courts, Raid Courts, Hima Courts and District Council Courts, and if CrPC and CPC is implemented, the Village or Locality courts and Hima Courts will have to be shut down because they do not have the funds to pay the judges who have attained the LLB and higher degrees to judge the cases.
He also said that the Supreme Court in many cases had clearly stated that the CPC and CrPC in tribal areas is because the tribal people have been affected, and do not want to confuse the people by the many statutes of the law.
Kharjahrin said that if the Government wants to empower the District Council Courts then it should made separate laws such as the Meghalaya Criminal Procedure Code and the Meghalaya Civil Procedure and in making these laws they should have discerned that the powers of the District Council Courts and indigenous courts are not affected, or if the CPC and the CrPC are implemented then they should have done that only for the District Courts while exempting the same from the Locality or Village Courts, Raid, Hima and District Council Courts and the power of the District Council Courts to judge the cases between tribals should not be taken away.
