Login With Google
State of forensic labs
Why is it in news?
- A Ministry of Home Affairs document in the Supreme Court shows that vacancies in the country’s forensic labs are alarmingly high even as cases pile up in trial courts and undertrial prisoners languish in jails.
- The forensic laboratories, at both the Central and State levels, are used to examine crucial evidence which could decide between life and death in many criminal cases.
- The role of the laboratories have expanded lately with the emergence of cybercrime and drug-related offences.
- They also play a major role in using medical evidence to crack sex crimes.
Across country
- The document of November 20 shows that 164 posts out of total 450 in the six Central Forensic Science Laboratories (CFSLs) under the Directorate of Forensic Science Services are lying vacant.
- These labs are located in Bhopal, Chandigarh, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune.
- In fact the Central Bureau of Investigation’s only CFSL has 87 vacancies out 184 total sanctioned posts.
- n Uttar Pradesh’s single State Forensic Science Laboratory (SFSL), of 1,132 sanctioned posts, 830 are vacant.
- That makes it an 80% vacancy.
- Likewise, Bihar’s SFSL has 126 vacancies out of a total sanctioned strength of 191 posts, while Tamil Nadu’s lab has 124 vacancies out of a total sanctioned strength of 496. In Delhi, there are 78 vacancies out of 318 sanctioned posts.
Upgrades proposed
- The Ministry document also highlights policies to upgrade State FSLs, including under the Central government scheme called ‘Modernisation of Police Forces’.
- The scheme aims to integrate police stations to set up a national data base of crime and criminal records which would be linked with other pillars of criminal justice system such as prisons, FSL and prosecution offices.
- DFSS as per its charter of duties continuously provides technical support to the State FSLs for establishment of new divisions like DNA, CYBER, audio-video, etc, training and any other technical support.
- DFSS is in the process of upgradation of existing forensic division, setting up new ones like digital forensic division, forensic DNA division, forensic intelligence division, narcotics drug division, etc, in its six CFSLs.
- It said buildings for new CFSLs at Pune, Bhopal and Guwahati were “almost at completion stage” adding that a “state-of-the-art” DNA laboratory has been proposed at CFSL, Chandigarh, using the Nirbhaya Fund.
- The financial outlay for the project is Rs. 99.76 crore and the facility could be used to examine 2000 DNA crime cases at a time. A Rs. 37.72-crore National Cyber Forensic Science Laboratory at Hyderabad is also in the cards.