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Convictions over 65%, aim to cross 75%: CBI
The CBI filed an affidavit in this regard in response to questions posed by the court on September 3
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has been able to maintain a success rate of about 65-70% in getting conviction over the last 10 years, agency director Subodh Kumar Jaiswal has told the Supreme Court, adding that the CBI is trying to improve this average to 75% by August 2022.
Submitting his personal affidavit, Jaiswal informed a bench headed by justice SK Kaul that CBI secured conviction of the accused in 69.83% and 69.19% of the cases in 2020 and 2019, respectively, and that he was making specific attempts to improve the directorate of prosecution for a better conviction rate in trial courts.
“It is the endeavour of the CBI to bring the present conviction rate to 75% by August 2022,” stated the director’s affidavit while laying down several crucial statistics on the functioning of the premier investigating agency. India celebrates 75 years of Independence on August 15, 2022.
The affidavit was filed in response to questions posed by the court on September 3. The bench, which also included justice MM Sundresh, had called on CBI for placing relevant data on the cases being prosecuted by the agency throughout the country and their success rate in securing conviction. It was of the view that an analysis of CBI’s working must be done and that the “premier investigating agency” cannot simply launch prosecutions and then not bother about their outcome.
According to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the courts’ conviction rate in 2020 for crimes registered under the Indian Penal Code was 59.2%. It was an improvement from 50.4% recorded in 2019 and 50% recorded in 2018. It was also the highest in five years.
Experts, however, raised some questions about the data on convictions in Jaiswal’s affidavit.
A former CBI joint director, who didn’t want to be named, asked whether the “success rate” data included the final outcome in higher courts or only first stage convictions. “Has the agency factored in conviction of all the accused persons or discharge of some accused in a particular case has been ignored while sharing this data with the SC? These issues have always plagued the CBI that actual final stages conviction or acquittal data is not taken into account,” the director said
Jaiswal’s affidavit disclosed that there were 9,757 CBI cases pending as of December 31, 2020. Out of this, one-third (3,249) cases were pending trials for more than 10 years each. There are 500 cases still at the stage of trial after 20 years.
Jaiswal said in his affidavit that in many such cases, trials were held up because of stay orders granted by the Supreme Court and the high courts. He contended that despite the Supreme Court’s directives disapproving of an indefinite stay on trials, “there are still a number of cases in which the trial has been stayed”.
However, the statistics submitted by the CBI director with his affidavit showed that out of total 9,757 cases, only 367 cases (3.7%) were stayed by the Supreme Court or high courts.
The oldest instance of stay on trial was from the Calcutta high court, where two corruption cases remain suspended since April 1991. Similarly, in one case, the stay on the trial from the Supreme Court has been operating since August 2000.
The data further demonstrated that Delhi and Maharashtra had maximum number of pending CBI cases at the trial stage. As of December 31, 2020, Delhi had 1,227 such cases while Maharashtra 1,073 cases. The other states with large number of pending CBI trials were West Bengal (905), Uttar Pradesh (696), Tamil Nadu (629), Bihar (629), Gujarat (465) and Jharkhand (446).
Of all states, West Bengal had the maximum number of cases — 112, that has been pending trials for more than 20 years; followed by Delhi (81), Maharashtra (62) and Bihar (52).
The CBI chief told the top court that a committee — with the director of prosecution as a member and involving all the senior law officers serving in different zones of CBI — had also been constituted to suggest steps and prepare strategy to speed up the pending trials, especially those pending for more than 20 years.
About pending appeals, Jaiswal’s affidavit stated that there were 13,291 appeals pending across all the levels of courts in the country. Of these, 1,194 were filed by the agency whereas the rest of them had been filed by the accused. A majority of these appeals,12,258, were pending across the high courts.
The CBI director rued that the appeals in CBI cases take long time in their disposal. Jaiswal referred to the 2G spectrum scam case where the CBI filed an appeal in 2018 against acquittal of all the accused, including former Union telecom minister A Raja and MP Kanimozhi, but the Delhi high court is yet to admit the case after granting leave to appeal.
Similarly, Jaiswal also cited the agency’s predicament in completing investigation in cases where the state concerned has withdrawn the general consent from the CBI to conduct probe in its territory and the agency needs to obtain the state’s consent on a case-by-case basis.
The affidavit stated that CBI has sent over 150 requests to the governments of Maharashtra, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Kerala and Mizoram between 2018 and June 2021 for grant of specific consent for investigation of cases in the territory of these states but approvals were granted in less than 18% cases.
Jaiswal highlighted that the cases in which the states agreed for a CBI probe chiefly related to trap of corrupt central public servants, while requests in approximately 78% cases pertaining to bank frauds of high magnitude impacting the economy of the country remained pending.
“The delay caused in taking up cases by the CBI due to any of the reasons mentioned above, at times, leads to destruction or dissipation of evidence. This is detrimental not only for the investigation by the CBI but also for subsequent prosecution of cases,” lamented Jaiswal.
On Wednesday, additional solicitor general Sanjay Jain, who was appearing for CBI, informed the bench about Jaiswal’s affidavit filed on October 18. The affidavit, however, was not on record, prompting the bench to defer the matter to November 8.
The court was hearing a matter arising out of the CBI’s appeal from a 2018 judgment of the Jammu & Kashmir high court. By this judgment, the high court let off some lawyers from the charges of fabricating false evidence against a few security forces personnel to frame them in a case of rape and murder. While the two girls from Shopian had died due to drowning in March 2009, CBI claimed that some lawyers and doctors created false evidence of rape and murder to implicate personnel of security forces.
However, it took CBI more than a year to file its appeal against this order. In January, the top court sought an explanation from the department noting the delay in filing the case “shows clearly gross incompetence in the legal department of CBI which raises serious questions of its efficacy to prosecute the case”.
When the agency submitted its explanation for the delay in February, the bench was livid and called it “a saga of gross negligence in performing duties” while asking, this time, the CBI director to file his personal affidavit as to what steps are being taken to ensure proper functioning of prosecution of legal cases.
Subsequently, then CBI director Rishi Kumar Shukla filed his affidavit in March 2020 apologising for the inordinate delay in filing the appeal. The director pointed out that a new set of instructions with stipulated timelines have been issued to streamline the process of filing and monitoring of appeals filed by the agency.
The present CBI director Jaiswal, in his latest affidavit, has also referred to a new standing order issued on September 27 by which a dedicated cell has been created in CBI, for the monitoring and co-ordination of proposals relating to filing of appeals and special leave petitions. “Apart from the above role, the co-ordination cell has also been entrusted to take up matters with field formations to fulfil the necessary requirements, if any, in the proposals sent,” added the director.
