Telegraphic code for fingerprints: How justice was denied to the innovator who helped ameliorate the criminal justice system

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, an Indian officer of the Bengal Police, sub-inspector Hem Chandra Bose (1867–1949) invented the telegraphic code system for fingerprints and published it in 1916. Sir Charles Stockley Collins of Scotland Yard, who is worldwide recognized as the originator of fingerprint telegraphic technique, published his findings in 1921—five years after Bose’s publication. Likewise Bose devised the single digit fingerprint classification system three years prior to Harry Battley, also of the Scotland Yard. The then British government honored Bose by awarding him an honorarium of Rs. 5000/- and by conferring the title of Rai Bahadur on him. However, this is not enough; Bose ought to be more widely recognized as a pioneer of the science of fingerprinting.