Hyderabad: The conviction rates in Telangana state are low when compared the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. Once an arrest is made, the case goes to the court for trial and there is no guarantee of a conviction unless there is concrete evidence and probable cause.
DCP, South, Satyanarayana said, “The police ensures substantial evidence is collected at the time of arrest. However this is not the final step and there are still a number of factors that remain in addition to the case file that takes time to procure, like forensic evidence.” This leads to the burden of proof being on the police in order to get the conviction.
A recent study by the NGO Common Cause, ‘Status of Policing in India Report 2018’ substantiates the cause for such a gap in a study of policing performances. The reason extends to lower utilisation of policing funds and forensic examination errors during investigations.
The police case disposal in Telangana state was 77 per cent. The court conviction rate was at a low 35 per cent. A cumulative study of both the Telugu-speaking states showed Andhra Pradesh had a higher conviction rates of 61 per cent at both police and court levels in comparison to Telangana state which was slightly below at 56 per cent in convictions.
Asked about the low rate, Dr Madhusudan Reddy, staff scientist and CODIS administrator of the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD) said, “Evidence is a crucial aspect of a criminal proceeding. DNA evidence and crime scene-linking evidence can be used in the court of law only if the samples tested have been collected as per procedure.” He said small mistakes in sample collection at the crime scene could lead to the case being lost. “Loss of a crucial element of sampling leads to an analysis that is not fully substantial,” Dr Madhusudhan Reddy said.
Giving a legal perspective on this, criminal lawyer Namrata Das said that according to a study done on special courts under the Pocso Act, forensic evidence was unavailable in 311 cases specific to sexual assaults in 2017. This resulted in only 30 cases out of 57 ending in conviction. “With circumstantial evidence, there is hardly enough for a conviction, the burden of the proof lies in case files that is the accumulation of the chargesheet and the evidence, CCTV, witness and forensics. Without these, the case will fall through.”
