The Tribune: Chandigarh: Monday, June 04, 2018.
Deputy
Commissioners (DCs) in Haryana have been exercising powers of District
Magistrates (DMs) for over four decades without a notification by the
government empowering them to exercise such powers.
A reply to
RTI pleas by Hemant Kumar, an Ambala-based advocate, has revealed that no such
notification has been issued by the government ever since the present Criminal
Procedure Code, 1973, has come into force from April 1, 1974.
“You are
informed that the matter regarding declaration to empower all DCs to act as DMs
in their respective districts in terms of provisions of Section 20 of the
Criminal Procedure Code is under consideration of the government and as and
when it will be decided, the decision will be conveyed to you,” said an interim
reply given by the office of Additional Chief Secretary, Administration of
Justice Department, to Kumar’s RTI query.
Kumar filed
an RTI plea in December last year, demanding a copy of notification issued
under the CrPC for empowering DCs as DMs in their respective districts.
The
department, in turn, forwarded Kumar’s plea to all DCs asking them to reply it.
When he did
not get any such notification from any of the DCs, Kumar moved another
application, this time quoting an SC judgment (in Ajaib Singh vs Gurbachan
Singh) that said a notification under Section 20 of the CrPC was mandatory to
empower DCs with magisterial powers.
In an interim
reply to his second plea, the department said it was under consideration of the
government. “I stumbled upon this issue while going through the gradation and
distribution list of IAS officers of the Haryana cadre and the HSC officer
executive branch. I noticed that while the government had issued a notification
for empowering additional deputy commissioners as additional district
magistrates and sub-divisional officer (civil) as sub-divisional magistrates,
but no such notification had ever been issued with regards to DCs, though they
acted as DMs in their respective districts,” said Hemant Kumar.