NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION IN INDIA: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES AND CHALLENGES ORGANIZED BY SCHOOL OF LAW, THE NORTHCAP UNIVERSITY

There have been series of deliberations among the legal academia and practitioners on the functioning of various agencies involved in the administration of criminal justice in the recent times. There is no denying the fact that such discourses do have a strong impact on the criminal justice process that involve the law enforcement agencies, prosecution, judiciary and corrections. With the advancement of science and technology, every stage of criminal proceeding encounters new challenges which need to be addressed. Access to justice, in general is a major challenge in the contemporary time and the factors responsible for its denial need to be pondered upon for a more accountable system of criminal justice. Taking these facts into consideration, School of Law, the NorthCap University in collaboration with the Indian Bar Association organized a ‘National Conference on Criminal Justice Administration in India: Contemporary Issues & Challenges’ on April 8, 2017. Eminent dignitaries from the legal fraternity such as Justice Vidya Bhushan Gupta, Former Judge, Delhi High Court, Prof. (Dr.) G.S. Bajpai, Registrar, National Law University Delhi, New Delhi and Sh. KTS Tulsi, Senior Advocate, the Supreme Court of India were present during the Inaugural Ceremony to grace the occasion. In his Welcome address, Prof. (Dr.) Prem Vrat, Pro-Chancellor, NCU expressed his pleasure to host the conference on a contemporary theme and stated “a holistic approach is the need of the hour towards facilitation of better criminal justice administration”. One of his suggestions was interlinking of law and technology to facilitate a smoother justice administration. Emphasizing on the importance of the Conference on an area which is highly crucial in today’s time, Mr. KTS Tulsi expressed concerns about the invisibility of the victims and the plight of the poor section in the criminal justice system. He also provided concrete suggestions such as recording of telephone calls in police stations during registration of cases and setting up a separate interrogation room facilitating a fair process. Justice Vidya Bhushan Gupta shared some of his experiences and challenges encountered during the justice delivery process. He referred to some of the crucial provisions of the Criminal law and encouraged the young lawyers to explore the possibility of their effective application in the administration of criminal justice. Justice Gupta also highlighted the plight of the victims in the process. Delivering the keynote address, Prof. (Dr.) G.S. Bajpai, Registrar, National Law University Delhi, emphasized on crucial issues such as access to justice, how the poor class is placed in the system and over-criminalization. He also expressed- “lesser importance has been given on criminal justice, which itself has become a problem rather than a solution”. Addressing the participants from all over the country, who have contributed their research papers on various relevant themes such as cyber-crime investigation, juvenile justice, courts etc, Prof. Bajpai suggested all the researchers from other institutions as well as the NorthCap University to focus on conducting empirical studies to identify the major challenges in the criminal justice system. The Conference had various technical sessions where around one hundred students and professionals from different institutions presented their research papers. The sessions were chaired by eminent academicians. Three research papers were awarded the First, Second and Third Prize in the Conference. The awardees are -

First Prize - Arshia Katyal, USLLS (GGSIPU), & Smrita Sinha, Amity Law School, Delhi

Second Prize - Anusha Arif & Akash Chaudhury, Aligarh Muslim University, U.P.

Third Prize - Jyotsna Arora & Karandeep Singh, USLLS (GGSIPU)

The awards and other certificates were distributed during the Valedictory Session held at the end of the day.