Due process is widely seen as a hindrance to rough and ready solutions promising substantive justice
In early December 2019, the Supreme Court heard a petition on the extrajudicial killing of four men who had been arrested on charges of rape and murder of a veterinarian near Hyderabad. Following the incident, the Telangana government had assured the courts that it had already initiated an investigation and inquest into the killing. The judges were surprised, however, that the FIR registered by the police was not against the policemen who had killed the four accused, but against the four men killed, for ‘attempt to murder’. The court found it “rather odd” as it is “obvious that no prosecution could be contemplated against dead persons who can neither be tried nor convicted”. What the court found odd has long been the norm in such extrajudicial killings — an FIR is usually filed against the killed, and not against the killers.
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