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Maharashtra cops' dubious feat: 90% acquittal

Poor investigating skills, framing of wrong people among reasons attributed

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Maharashtra, it seems, is the worst among states when it comes to investigating and prosecuting criminal cases. The state police top the chart for having the highest rate of acquittals in criminal cases, touching as high as 91.8 per cent in 2011.

In other words, the state is at the bottom in securing conviction of criminals and sending them to prison, shows the data from the national crime records bureau (NCRB). In three years between 2011 and 13, Maharashtra police succeeded in convicting only 32,462 out of a total number of 3,13,111 cases whose trial was over, thus acquitting persons in 2,80,649 cases.

In terms of percentage, the rate of acquittal was 91.8% in 2011, 90.6% in 2010 and 86.7% in 2013 standing in poor contrast to the national average of 58.9%, 61.5% and 59.8% for the corresponding period.

Maharashtra's acquittal rate is even higher than states like Bihar and Jharkhand that accounted for 86.6% and 74.9% acquittals respectively in 2013. Even UP, considered to be a lawless state by many, scored a far low acquittal rate between 40% and 48% between 2011 to 2013.

The reason, lawyers say, lies in poor investigating and prosecuting skills, and along with other reasons it reflects very poorly on the quality of the policing.

"It reflects poor investigative, prosecution capabilities of the force; a big reason could also be framing wrong people under criminal charges for ulterior motives that finally cannot stand the scrutiny of law. It also means having poor quality of police officers who badly require training to acquire competence in criminal laws and investigation methods," says noted criminal lawyer K T S Tulsi.

According to a senior union home ministry official, besides these, witnesses turning hostile, inadequacy of procedures to protect witnesses and delay in disposal of cases are also responsible for acquittals in a large number of cases but ultimately it all speaks on efficacy and efficiency of the police.

A possible way out to secure higher conviction and low acquittal rate is to implement various recommendations of the Justice J S Verma committee, say officials.

"The state needs to give emphasis on training police officers and the public prosecutors to improve the quality of prosecution and assist the judges in disposal of cases," said an official.

Besides, government has also set up the National Mission for Justice Delivery and Legal Reforms for reducing delays and arrears through policy and legislative changes, re-engineering procedures and leveraging Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for better justice delivery.

"But it cannot translate into results unless it is backed and pursued by executive, legislature of various states and the judiciary actively," say officials.

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