April - June 2010 - Bureau of Police Research and Development

Conviction Rate : A Reality CheckAbstractLarge number ofacquittals in criminalcases is widelyperceived to be animportant reasonbehind declining fear oflaw in our Society. Overthe years, people havelost faith in the capacityof the law enforcementmachinery to bringoffenders to justice.at every stage. Few offenders are convicted.Fewer actually spend time in prison. The rest,especially, the white collar variety, are able totake advantage of a host of lacunae in thesystem and manage to avoid incarceration. Aninnocent person wrongly prosecuted by thepolice, on the other hand, has to struggle foryears to prove his innocence. These distortionsare hitting at the root of our Criminal JusticeSystem, highlighting pressing need for reforms.As per official statistics, conviction rate in theCentral Bureau of Investigation in the last 10years has been as under:Table-1: Conviction Rate in CBIYearPercentage1998 72.01999 57.12000 71.92001 70.02002 68.72003 68.42004 66.32005 65.62006 72.642007 67.25The above table demonstrates that the Bureauhas achieved an impressive conviction ratebetween 57.1% and 72.64%. In the States, barringa few like Tamil Nadu where they still have theold system of Police Officers heading theDirectorate of Prosecution resulting in bettercoordination, conviction rate is much lower.Calculation of Conviction Ratecases disposed off by the courts in a calendaryear. Clearly, the focus is on cases ending inconviction, rather than accused persons beingconvicted. Following are a few limitations of thisapproach:(i)Only if one accused is convicted in a case,the whole case is deemed to have resultedin conviction, even though rest of theaccused have been acquitted.At times, accused persons confess after aninformal understanding is reached with thecourt and the Public Prosecutor. Only a mildsentence is imposed in such cases like 'tillrising of the court, etc. Such cases inflatethe conviction rate.Conviction rate takes into account only theoutcome of trial at the first stage i.e.judgement of the trial court. In severalinstances, convicted persons are lateracquitted by the appellate court. Officialconviction rate at present does not reflectdecisions of the appellate courts.There is another important aspect relating toconvictions. A majority of the convictedaccused persons are sentenced to three or lessnumber of years of imprisonment and thereforegranted bail forthwith in accordance withSection 389(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code,1973, which reads as suspension of sentencepending the appeal; release of appellant on bail.Where the convicted person satisfies theCourt by which he is convicted that heintends to present an appeal, the Court shall :where such person, being on bail, issentenced to imprisonment for a term notexceeding three years, orFurther, as the readers would know, convictionrate is calculated on the basis of cases resultingin conviction as a percentage of total number of(ii)where the offence of which such personhas been convicted is a bailable one, andhe is on bail,26 ➢ The Indian Police Journal Vol. LVII-No. 2, April-June, 2010