Metropolitan Sessions Judge (MSJ) R. Niranjan on Saturday said the rate of conviction in India was barely five per cent, as the defence lawyers successfully exploited the legal loopholes.
It is up to the public prosecutors and police to ensure that the cases did not fizzle out due to procedural lapses and lack of coordination among them while jurisprudence continued to evolve for the better, he observed.
Addressing a monthly review meeting of prosecuting officers here on Saturday, Mr. Niranjan said the basic concept in Indian law that ‘not even a single innocent person should be punished even if scores of guilty escape trial’ was the main reason for things going haywire.
Before the systemic flaws were set right by appropriate policy interventions, the law enforcement agencies and judicial officers should act in tandem for improving the rate of conviction, which was abysmal in India.
A concerted effort has to be made to remove the infirmities in the cases presented in courts, he added. Police Commissioner A.B. Venkateswara Rao suggested to the MSJ to check whether there was any mechanism for verifying the authenticity of sureties submitted along with bail applications.
The sureties ought to be foolproof as otherwise a large number of accused were ‘jumping bail’ on the back of ‘stock sureties’. Those furnishing sureties were also not traceable in many instances.
Mr. Niranjan said stock sureties could be checked to some extent by insisting that those giving sureties on behalf of the accused should submit statutory proofs of their identity at the time of filing bail applications and be accessible for the investigating officers to examine the veracity of their credentials.
Unless some remedy is found, it becomes extremely difficult to lawfully deny bail to persons in spite of their acts of offence having corroborative evidence, he affirmed. Mr. Venkateswara Rao observed that the ‘bureaucratic inertia’ prevented them from adopting the innovative system which had been working successfully for last eleven years.
