The conviction ratio explained

The Delhi High Court has asked the Delhi police to explain its handling of the Jessica Lall case. This is as it should be. That the police can secure a conviction when they want to, by the simple expedient of planting incriminating evidence and getting "friendly" witnesses to testify, is as well-known as the opposite fact, namely, that they can get persons off the hook even when there are eye-witnesses. It is also accepted that variations of this happen in all countries. But there the similarities between the more law-abiding countries and India end. Whereas governments in the more civilised countries have tried to do something about the problem of witness intimidation and/or bribing, India has yet to recognise the problem officially. Indeed, in those countries it is usually organised gangs that intimidate and bribe. Here it is the police, acting in concert with the criminals.

The results are there for all to see. The Jessica Lall and Best Bakery cases are only the latest in a long line of skulduggery of the worst order where the victim gets punished twice, because the perpetrators get away with their crime. Even worse is the fact that it is the state, which is supposed to prosecute criminals, that metes out the punishment the second time round. It goes without saying that it is the rich and the powerful who have the benefit of the state's cooperation; the weak and the poor pay even when they are not guilty, just so that the record of convictions looks better. But nothing can disguise the statistic mentioned by a former Chief Justice of India: in the last 45 years, the percentage of convictions has declined from 60 per cent to a mere 22 per cent. This is due to the deadly mixture of police incompetence and corruption. It is time the government did something about it because, as we have repeatedly seen in our history, a state that is perceived as being incapable of protecting life and liberty soon loses legitimacy.

What can be done? The answer to this must not be to confuse the process with the objective. For example, the objective must not only be to protect witnesses, both from threats to their lives and from bribery, there must also be a corresponding obligation not to turn hostile. To be sure, we will not get a process that is 100 per cent foolproof, but almost anything would be an improvement on the current situation. The second requirement must be to ensure that policemen who ruin a case, deliberately or through incompetence, are dismissed from service. In the Jessica Lall case a very senior police official had filed an official report that evidence had been tampered and was weak. In the Priyadarshini Mattoo case, the judge said he knew who was guilty but he would have to let him go as the evidence was not sufficient.

Third, the trial process needs to be speeded up, both to spare the witnesses the tedium of waiting about in courts and to ensure that they are not suborned. True, these and the other measures that are needed will take time. But surely the process can be quuickened if some inner voices could once again be heard, or if raj dharma could be invoked.