Excerpts: "Advocate Rasmi Ranjan Jena says "As we know in most of the cases already tried in the Fast Track Courts in Kandhamal the accused persons have been acquitted. This is nothing but a great failure of the criminal justice system which has miserably failed to give justice to the victims of the communal violence. At this juncture there is an urgent need of critical analysis of the factors responsible for the failure. Though nothing much should be expected from a judicial forum in a communal society, but we need to have a self introspection to develop a strategy for the upcoming days."
"In the context of regular acquittals of the persons accused of criminal involvement during Kandhamal violence by Fast Track Courts on the ground of non-availability of witnesses, a meeting was held at Lohia Academy, Bhubaneswar to listen the experiences of the victims and their witnesses seeking justice. About seventy five persons including the victims, activists, representatives of left/democratic political parties and civil society organisations, advocates, media persons, civil society members, church leaders and others participated in the Meeting. Observations - Public Prosecutors are mostly found biased against the victims - In comparison with the skills, influences, clouts, numbers of advocates favoring the accused persons, the strength of advocates need to be improved - Faulty and biased methods of police investigation, framing the charge sheets and presentations in the Courts weaken the cases - Absence of social and physical security of the victims and witnesses inside and outside the Court - The provision that in GR cases only Public Prosecutors can argue, while the victim parties can not appoint their own advocates privately, does not help the victims in cases where PPs are biased. - Show of extra-favour to the accused ones by some judges harass the victims and their counsels - Lawyers counseling the victim parties are even persuaded not to continue their legal assistance - Witnesses are threatened/allured to turn hostile - Absence of democratic and left parties in comparing to the dominance of BJP and RSS helps the culprits and corrupts the atmosphere of the courts http://www.sacw.net/article1221.html