Rakesh Bhatnagar: Low conviction & govt’s apathy to crime victims

There is change of weather and wind seems to have started blowing in favour of accused persons. That apparently has happened due to the strong pressure of backlog of cases, an old phenomenon largely witnessed in the Indian dispensation system, and the blackout of the victims of crime from the atmosphere miffed with procedures and law.

There’s state or police or an investigating agency on hand claiming it to be the statutory attorney holder of the aggrieved persons, and on the other side are lawyers representing the accused persons who are suspected to have committed an offence causing trauma either to a human being or the state exchequer. In between them exists a court of law.

Accused persons appear before the court regularly and gradually they create a rapport with it and its staff. Invariably it could be heard that the court is helpless in granting certain relief to the accused due to certain procedures or ambiguity in the law. If that wasn’t there, perhaps there wouldn’t have been any problem in giving a helping hand to an accused.

Be that as it may, the snail paced dispensation system has so far benefited the accused persons. The conviction rate is pathetically low. There have been nearly 1.27 lakh murders in the country between 2005 and 2009. According to the data received in response to a RTI query by Dev Ashish Bhattacharya, the Union home ministry said 44,601 people have been convicted for these homicides in the last five years — 36.2%. Does it mean 63.8 per cent of murders cases remain unsolved and no one would be held guilty? It also propels the mechanism of right to life, a fundamental right that must be protected by the state. Has the government failed in its onerous task as it is also allowed to go Scot-free with the killers? Has any court ever directed the state to adequately compensate the victim of crime?

It is said that the state alone has the right to take the life of a citizen in accordance with the procedure established under the law. That’s the reason for the full throttled contest by the state against the controversial right to suicide. Only the state enjoys this right under the constitution, it would argue.

It is trite reminding the lesson on rights and duties that the primary school children are taught. Rights and duties go hand in hand. If there’s a right, there is a complementary duty to it. If the state has the right to take away life by resort to the procedure established by law, its duty bound to fulfill its constitutional obligation to protect the life and interests of people. The state shouldn’t be allowed to be selective in divorcing the right from its duty.