To ensure timely disposal of criminal cases, the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA) e-prosecution portal has added a new feature that will also fix accountability of government lawyers. The system will send alerts to senior officers whenever a public prosecutor seeks a stay in a criminal case more than twice, a senior government official said.
The e-prosecution module is part of the Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) that links and enables the seamless transfer of data and information among different pillars of the criminal justice system — such as courts, police, jails and forensic science laboratories — from one platform. The module has been implemented in 751 prosecution districts, and software configuration for the remaining 153 districts is under progress.
Earlier, the main pillars of the ICJS, including the e-police, e-courts, e-jails, e-forensics and e-prosecution were developed independently in the form of the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS). This system connects more than 16,000 police stations across the country and has a database of 28.98 crore police records that can only be accessed by law enforcement agencies and the judiciary.
Forensic probes
The Ministry has been emphasising investigations based on forensics to improve the conviction rate. On August 22, 2022, Home Minister Amit Shah said in Bhopal that the era of third degree torture, which had its roots in colonial India, was over, adding that the conviction of criminals could now be achieved on the basis of irrefutable forensic evidence. The government was working to overhaul the British-era Indian Penal Code, he said, adding that one of the changes being considered was making the collection of forensic evidence compulsory in crime cases punishable by more than six years in prison.
The National Informatics Centre (NIC) is in the process of integrating the module directly with the e-courts. “If a public prosecutor demands adjournment, the system generates alerts. The issue will be flagged to the concerned stakeholders immediately. The senior officers will be alerted and measures can be taken that the trial is not delayed,” the official said.
The ministry also tracks investigations into sexual assault cases across the country, every two months through its analytics tool, the Investigation Tracking System for Sexual Offences. This system was launched in February 2018. The official said that the compliance rate increased from 43% in 2018 to 60% in 2023. The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2018 amended Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to provide for completion of investigation in rape cases within two months.
