Identifying the Causes and Finding Solutions for Delays in Disposal of Criminal Appeals: Final Report Confidential & Not for Circulation This report is a commissioned piece of work by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy under the Scheme for Action Research and Studies on Judicial Reforms of the Department of Justice. Confidential & Not for Circulation About the Authors Shreya Tripathy, Chitrakshi Jain and Aditya Ranjan are Research Fellows at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, New Delhi working for the JALDI (Justice, Access and Lowering Delays in India) Initiative. The authors would like to thank Shri Barun Mitra (Secretary, Justice), Shri G.R. Raghavender (Joint Secretary, National Mission for Justice Delivery & Legal Reforms), Smt. Premlata Kaushik (Dy. Secretary, JR) and the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law & Justice for giving us the opportunity to work on this project under the Scheme for Action Research and Studies on Judicial Reforms. The authors are extremely thankful to Hon’ble Justice P.N. Prakash and Hon’ble Justice and Hon’ble Justice S. Nagamuthu for their valuable insights during the internal consultation held for the report. The authors are also thankful to Mr. Manas Gawankar (Advocate, Bombay High Court), Mr. Varad Nath (Advocate, Rajasthan High Court) and Mr. Pranesh Misra (Advocate, Delhi High Court) for their inputs during the consultation. The comments and views expressed during the consultation have added valuable insights to this final output. The authors are also grateful to Ameen Jauhar (Senior Resident Fellow) and Deepika Kinhal (Senior Resident Fellow) for their review and inputs. The authors would also like to thank Vaidehi Misra (Research Fellow) and Megha Katheria (associate Fellow) for their contribution to the Report. The authors are also extremely thankful to Mr. Satishwar Kedas and Dr. Sushant Sinha for their help in procuring data for this report. The author would also like to thank Development Data Lab for providing data for procuring data from the e-Courts website and making it openly available for researchers. The authors would also like to thank Vidhi Kautilya Fellows Anmol Gupta, Ankita Kamath, Arush Mittal, Ayushi Gupta, Mehak Jain, Mishika Bedi, Shinjini Mitra and Shubham Dhamelia, and Vidhi interns Anshika Kesarwani and Arjun Butani, for their assistance on the report. The errors, if any, rest with the authors. For more information, see www.vidhilegalpolicy.in. Contact us at [email protected]. July 2021. 4 Identifying Causes and Finding Solutions for Delay in Disposal of Criminal Appeals Contents Background ......................................................................................................................................... 12 Need to Study Delay in the Criminal Justice Administration.......................................................... 15 Research Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 17 Right to Timely Justice ....................................................................................................................... 21 Legal Framework for Criminal Appeals ........................................................................................... 23 Appeals to the Supreme Court ............................................................................................................. 23 Appeals to the High Courts .................................................................................................................. 24 Bail pending appeal and suspension of sentence................................................................................... 24 Supreme Court’s Recent Intervention ................................................................................................... 25 Measures to deal with old Criminal Appeals .......................................................................................... 27 Case Data Analysis: Supreme Court and High Courts ..................................................................... 28 Analysis of Filing Patterns .................................................................................................................... 31 Analysis of Pending Cases................................................................................................................... 33 Analysis of Disposed Cases ................................................................................................................. 39 Relationship between the length of the case and nature of offences ....................................................... 42 Relationship between length of a case and the range of punishment....................................................... 46 Case Data Analysis: District Courts................................................................................................... 48 Analysis of Pending Cases................................................................................................................... 51 Analysis of Disposed Cases ................................................................................................................. 56 Relationship between the length of the case and nature of offences ....................................................... 60 Relationship between length of a case and the range of punishment....................................................... 62 Approaches to Judicial Reforms ........................................................................................................ 63 Specific attempts to fasten disposal of Criminal Appeals ........................................................................ 63 Considerations While Reforming the Administration of Criminal Justice in India...................... 66 Recommendations .............................................................................................................................. 68 Part II ................................................................................................................................................... 73 Assessing Recent Developments Made to Address Backlog and Delay in the Criminal Justice System ................................................................................................................................................. 74 Why have the past attempts at digitisation of courts not meaningfully informed legal reforms? .................. 74 Why has plea bargaining failed to achieve its desired goals of reducing backlog and the prison population? .......................................................................................................................................................... 76 How have the recent attempts to digitise the adjudication of cases in the Negotiable Instruments Act fared? .......................................................................................................................................................... 77 Annexures ........................................................................................................................................... 80 5 Confidential & Not for Circulation Executive Summary Background Pendency and delay are endemic to courts in India. While the total volume of cases pending across all the courts is staggering, it is necessary to unpack the pendency numbers court-wise and across different categories of cases to properly understand the causes of delay. Pendency in Criminal Appeals is particularly alarming since the number of cases pending for more than ten years across many High Courts is very high. If we categorise cases based on time taken for disposal within a High Court, a clear pattern emerges which suggests that Criminal Appeals take the longest to dispose of. This research attempts to understand the reasons behind delay in adjudication of Criminal Appeals and aims to devise solutions to the problem. Methodology For this purpose, we are studying the criminal appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of India, and four state High Courts (i.e., Allahabad, Bombay, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan). These courts report some of the highest pendency figures when it comes to Criminal Appeals. The research also delves into some District Courts under the jurisdiction of the respective High Courts. In addition to reviewing the existing policy and academic literature on the issue of arrears and delay in criminal cases in general and Criminal Appeals in particular. The research has employed mixed methods to analyse cases before the selected courts. For quantitative case data analysis, meta data stored on the High Court servers has been collected for a period of ten years and data has been analysed for trends in disposal and pendency. The data for the District Courts has been sourced from the e-Courts data made available by the DDL Judicial Data Portal. For the qualitative analysis, stakeholder consultations have been undertaken to identify the challenges faced by them in criminal justice administration. Key Issues addressed Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction The primary function of appeals is to “protect against miscarriages of justice”. This report undertakes an in- depth analysis of the criminal appellate jurisdiction of the High Courts and the Supreme Court in India under Chapter XXIX of the Cr.PC. Sections 374-378 of the Cr.PC which deal with Criminal Appeals to the High Court and the Supreme Court which are relevant for the purposes of our study. Findings from the Empirical Study Case