Why Delhi has the lowest conviction rate?

LI Research

India has observed many socio-economic changes since independence. Various institutions were created, recreated, and restructured in the past decades so adjust to the changes. India has seen rapid growth in population as well in the past six decades.

Continuous growth in population and limited resources has been a major reason for increasing crimes in the country. The aspiration to elevate status, want to acquire power and economic unevenness led to conflicts and dysfunctional society which became a reason for increasing crimes day by day.

Of the total crimes committed in India every year, about 16.35 lakh are cognizable crimes under the IPC (including theft, burglary, rob­bery, dacoity, murder, riot, kidnapping, cheating, breach of trust…) and about 38.76 lakh are offenses under the local and special laws (like Dowry Prohibition Act, Prohibition Act, Gambling Act, Excise Act, Arms Act, Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, Narcotic Drugs and Psychiatric Substances Act, Railways Act, Explosive Substance Act…)^[1]

Police encounter of four alleged rapists of a veteran doctor from Hyderabad that took place in December 2019 was criticised and applauded by the people across the country.

The question that came up was whether such encounters are justified or the fate of the accused should be left in the hands of the law governing bodies.

Many who supported the encounter came up with the reasons that ineffective police and judiciary add to the plight of the victims and in cases of heinous crimes like rapes, encounters like this are justified.

Delayed and low convictions across the country are not a new matter of concern and one of the biggest examples of this is the Nirbhaya rape case. A student of nursing was brutally raped and murdered by six men on the night of 12^th December 2012 and this incident shook every citizen of the country.

But what was more disturbing was the amount of time that our justice system took to punish the criminals. Nirbhaya was one example of these crimes and there are thousands of crimes like this happening all over the country and there is rarely anyone to hear out the victims. In cases where the complaints are filed, the police, lawyers, and judiciary take up so much time to come to the conclusion that sometimes it becomes too late.

These crimes are recorded almost every day and are not restricted to one area, city, or state but have spread all over the country. Almost all the states are failing to control increasing incidences of crimes and to add up to that, conviction rates are not up to the mark where thousands of criminals walk out free and victims are delayed the justice.

Crime data of India

According to the report of the National Crime Record Bureau, a total of 51,56,172 cognizable crimes comprising 32,25,701 Indian Penal Code (IPC) crimes and 19,30,471 Special & Local Laws (SLL) crimes were registered in 2019. ^[2]

A total of 10,50,945 cases of offences affecting the human body were registered which accounted for 32.6% of total IPC crimes during 2019, out of which hurt (5,45,061 cases) accounted for maximum cases i.e., 51.9%, followed by cases of causing death by negligence (1,44,842 cases, 13.8%) and cases of Kidnapping and Abduction (1,05,037 cases, 10.0%). ^[3]

Crime against women

A total of 4,05,861 cases of crime against women were registered during 2019, showing an increase of 7.3% over 2018 (3,78,236 cases). The majority of cases under crime against women under IPC were registered under ‘Cruelty by Husband or His Relatives’ (30.9%) followed by ‘Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty’ (21.8%), ‘Kidnapping & Abduction of Women’ (17.9%) and ‘Rape’ (7.9%). ^[4]

As per the 2019 figures, an average of 87 cases of rape were registered across the country. With 32,033 registered rape cases, 2019 marks the seventh year in a row where the number of registered rape cases has crossed 30,000.

The overall conviction rate in cases of crimes against women, including both IPC and SLL Crimes in India was the highest in 2010 (at 27.8%) over the last 10 years. The conviction rate dropped to a low of 18.9% in 2016. Since 2017, the rate has been between 23 to 24% and the Conviction rate in cases of crimes against women was around 23% in 2019. ^[5]

Conviction rate in India

On average, 88 rapes take place every day in India, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for 2019. However, the conviction rate is as low as 27.8%. This means, out of 100 accused, only 28 get convicted. The NCRB data reveal the rate of crimes against women increased from 58.8 in 2018 to 62.4 in 2019. ^[6]

Crime data- Delhi

Capital state Delhi is no stranger to crimes such as murder, theft, rapes, robber, domestic violence and abuse, kidnapping, abduction and it has almost become impossible to live in one of the most important cities of the country.

It has been tagged as the crime capital of India with an increasing number of crimes day by day. In the recent report by NCRB Delhi tops all the crime charts of the country with a 41% share of the total crimes committed.

Among the 19 metropolitan cities in the country, Delhi has the poorest charge sheet rate of 16.2 percent, according to data released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for the year 2019. This means that among all cases of IPC crimes reported in such cities, Delhi Police filed the least number of charge sheets per 100 cases. ^[7]

Data released by Delhi police shows that by the end of October 31^st, 2019, 251519 crimes under IPC were committed and not to mention the SLL crimes which mean on an average 689 crimes per day. Two out of five crimes committed in the country occur right here in Delhi. If we look at data for metro cities only, then Delhi is miles ‘ahead’ of any other big city.

Delhi has observed a leap in the crimes and there is no controlling them unless the conviction process is made more effective and time-efficient. With the crimes increasing and low conviction rates, there is a very less chance of the betterment of the state.

Crime against women

Delhi police released data with the numbers of crimes against women. In 2019, Delhi reported 13190 crimes against women which included 2168 cases of rape, 2921 cases of Assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty, 3672 cases of kidnapping and abduction, 3052 cases of cruelty by husband and in-laws, and 103 dowry deaths.

The pendency rate with which refers to the courts is because of the pending trials and in the case of police, pending cases are in the ratio to the total number of cases reported and ongoing investigations.

These pending cases are one of the reasons for low conviction rates. Where the people trust the police force, they tend to report a large number of cases which creates a burden on the police hence leading to slow investigation and further delayed convictions. In the year 2016, Delhi accounted for the highest number of pending cases by police.

Crimes reported under Indian penal code

In the past few years, as per the data presented by NCRB, the violent crimes recorded were as follows:

With 1226970 total pending cases all over the country, Delhi contributed 170311 which is about 13% of the total. Whereas the states such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar amounted to 12%, 4%, 7%, 7% respectively.

NCRB data shows by the end of the year 2107, Delhi had a total of 141338 pending cases out of a total of 1249725 which is almost 11%.

Reasons for low conviction

Police and judiciary are the two important functionaries that work for the disposal of crimes and convict the criminals but the recent reports by various data collecting agencies show that the process of disposal of cases is lagging and there is a huge backlog in conviction.

The burden of low conviction in India cannot be put on the shoulders of either police or judiciary individually because the process of arresting a person to punishing him is a continuous one that starts from the police and ends at the judiciary.

Any case before it reaches the doors of the courthouse has to go through a long process of FIR, charge sheet, arrest, inquiry, investigation which delays the conviction from the beginning itself.

One other reason that adds up to this long process is no witness protection. In maximum cases, a witness is acquainted with the whereabouts of the convict but is afraid to come forward and if it comes forward, it turns hostile owing to the threats or out of court settlement.

Police are unequipped and lack the knowledge of science and law because of which it has to depend on other bodies to help in the investigation which turns into a disadvantage for the case.

Due to lack of facilities and modern technologies, they have to do work manually which is time-consuming and in case there are computers for a speedy process, many police officials aren’t trained to use them.

The low number of police personnel makes the investigation process slow and burdened. The number of police personnel currently deployed in Delhi, as per the Ministry of Home Affairs data, is 83,762, out of which 25%, i.e., 20,940 policemen, are deployed for the protection of VIPs. So, 62,821 policemen protect the rest of Delhi’s population. ^[8]

Another important reason for the delay in completing trials and the low conviction rate is the low judge people ratio.

There are 20 judges per 10 lakh people and the number of cases pending is 3.5 crore. One of the prima facie reasons that we are not able to contain the ever-growing pendency of cases is due to the shortage of high court judges. At present 399 posts or 37% of sanctioned judge strength, are vacant. ^[9]

Less number of judges causes inefficiency and the budding lawyers incline towards litigation as a career because judges are paid low. The disposal rate of cases has stayed between 55% to 59% in the Supreme Court of India, 28% at The High Courts, and 40% in the subordinate courts.

According to the National Judicial Data Grid, there are 26474838 pending criminal cases in high courts across India out of which more than 20% are 5 years old and almost 64000 cases are pending in Supreme Court as of December 2020.

There is not a sufficient number of courts and the resource allocated to the judiciary is insufficient at both centre and state. A very minimal percentage of the budget is spent on the Indian judiciary which makes it ineffective to dispose of cases.

Members of judiciary and police personnel have expressed concern over the low conviction rates. It is the need of the hour that police and prosecutors come to an understanding for a better criminal justice system and improved conviction rate.

The police, lawyers, and judges are interlinked and each should take their profession seriously and work effectively. To avoid delay in convictions, police should file FIRs and charge sheets with proper evidence, prosecutors should handle the cases seriously and judges should try to finish trials fast to prevent backlog.

1. https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/crimes/characteristics-of-crime-in-india-with-statistics/43982 ↑
2. https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/CII%202019%20Volume%201.pdf ↑
3. https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/CII%202019%20Volume%201.pdf ↑
4. https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/CII%202019%20Volume%201.pdf ↑
5. https://factly.in/data-huge-pendency-low-conviction-the-story-of-crimes-against-women/ ↑
6. https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/oct/03/under-30-per-centconviction-rate-in-rape-cases-in-india-says-ncrb-data-2205090.html#:~:text=NEW%20DELHI%3A%20On%20an%20average,accused%2C%20only%2028%20gets%20convicted. ↑
7. https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/delhi/2020/oct/08/delhi-records-poorest-chargesheet-rate-among-metro-cities-in-india-2207458.html ↑
8. https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/01/27/why-is-delhi-indias-crime-capital ↑
9. https://blog.ipleaders.in/delay-criminal-justice-system/#_edn12 ↑