April - June 2010 - Bureau of Police Research and Development

Conviction Rate : A Reality Checkof the maximum punishment prescribed inthe law for the said offence for eachconvicted accused. Annual average is givenin the following table:Table-2: Annual Average of SentenceYear Average quantum of sentenceawarded as % age ofmaximum punishment1980 10.1%1981 16.1%1982 17.28%1983 09.0%1984 04.05%Overall 12.86%Thus, on an average, a convicted accused wassentenced to undergo only 12.86% of themaximum sentence prescribed for the offencefor which he was convicted. This shows thatcourts take an extremely lenient view. It almostamounts to negating the objects in furtheranceof which the law was enacted in the first place.It is pertinent to mention that while calculatingthe figures given in the above table, theactual sentence awarded to the convictedaccused has been compared with the maximumpunishment prescribed for the most severeoffence for which he was convicted. Forexample, if an accused was convicted onthree counts, the maximum punishmentprescribed for the most severe offence wastaken as the denominator. Courts in Indiagenerally sentence convicted accused personsto undergo sentences concurrently. However,as per section 31 Cr. PC, the court maysentence an accused to undergo imprisonmenton each count consecutively i.e. one afterthe other. If the figures in the above tableare recalculated on the basis of this permissiblemaximum i.e. sum total of maximum prescribedpunishment for each offence, the results willbe even more disappointing.Justice Delayed is Justice DeniedAs already reported above :Average time taken ininvestigation:13.4 monthsAverage time taken in trial: 7 years4 monthsAverage time takenin deciding appeal:9 years11 monthsThe Sixty Six appeals are still pending.Average time taken in deciding appeals hasbeen calculated on the basis of only 37appeals which have been decided so far.Once the remaining appeals are also decidedand reflected in the calculations, the averagetime taken in deciding appeals is likely togo up further.The above figures show that trial andappeals together have taken 17 years onan average which is more than 15 timesthe time taken during investigation. In thepolice, delays in investigation are viewedseriously. Taking longer than a few monthsto complete investigation is considered asa professional sin. However, the abovefigures clearly show that investigation takesfar less time than trial and appeals. Evenif time taken to complete investigation ishalved, it will not make any significant dentin the overall time taken by the judicialprocess. Moral of the story (for CSI topbrass) is: Focus on quality of investigation,rather than emphasizing on statisticswhich has no impact on the groundsituation !The Indian Police Journal Vol. LVII-No. 2, April-June, 2010 29➢