Effectiveness of Investigator Supervisors in Overseeing Investigative Delay under the 2025 Criminal Procedure Code

Abstract

The 2025 Criminal Procedure Code gives the supervisor of the investigator a place in the procedure for completing case files and adds a court remedy for delay without a legitimate reason, yet the effectiveness of supervision in controlling investigative delay has not been examined. This study assessed what role the Code assigns to investigator supervisors and related actors, how effective the design of supervision is against seven criteria, and what framework could improve and measure effectiveness. A socio-legal design, mainly doctrinal, distinguished design effectiveness from performance effectiveness and graded sources by reliability. The analysis found that the Code set express time standards only at the file-completion stage, gave supervisors a role in the case conference after a second return, and left their continuing duty and powers undescribed in the sources reviewed. The design was strongest where external checks operated and weakest on information and independence, with capacity unknown. No public performance data existed. The study proposed a framework linking each criterion to an improvement and an indicator, built on registers, benchmarks as prompts, aggregate reporting, and limited links to discipline, which remained to be validated.