Plea bargaining on recent Supreme Court judgement

INTRODUCTION

Plea Bargaining can be described as a process whereby the accused may bargain with the prosecution for a lesser punishment. In simple words, Plea Bargaining is an agreement (contract) between the accused and the prosecution regarding disposition of the criminal charge leveled by the prosecution against the accused. It is not available for all types of crime e.g.; a person cannot claim plea bargaining after committing heinous crimes or for the crimes which are punishable with death or life imprisonment.

It would be wrong to assume that the concept of Plea Bargaining found favor of courts only in the recent past. In fact, it is used in the American Judiciary in 19^th century itself. The bill of Rights makes no mention of the practice when establishing the fair trial principle in the sixth amendment but the constitutionality of the Plea Bargaining had constantly been upheld there. In the year 1969, James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr. to avoid execution sentence. He finally got an imprisonment of 99 years.

Plea Bargaining is not an indigenous concept of Indian legal system. It is a part of the recent development of Indian Criminal Justice System (ICJS). It was inculcated in Indian Criminal Justice System after considering the burden of long-standing cases on the Judiciary.

Section 265A to 265L, Chapter XXIA of the Criminal Procedure Code deals with the concept of Plea Bargaining. It was inserted into the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2005. The 154th Report of the Law Commission was first to recommend the ‘plea bargaining’ in Indian Criminal Justice System. It defined Plea Bargaining as an alternative method which should be introduced to deal with huge arrears of criminal cases in Indian courts.

Types of Bargaining:

Charge Bargaining: It is a bargain or promise between the prosecutor and defendant to deduct some of the charges brought against the defendant in exchange of guilty acceptance. When accused accepts for guilty that he has committed the wrong then with the approval of prosecution, there can be charge bargaining but it solely depends upon the will of prosecution. Prosecution may accept or neglect it. After charge bargaining the defendant will face specific charge.

Sentence Bargaining: it is a promise by the prosecutor, after acceptance of guilty, to recommend the court specific sentence or bargained sentence or it can be done directly with the trial judge. For this purpose, accused must be informed about the sentence likely to be imposed in case he does not accepts his guilt but if he does so then prosecutor demands for lesser sentence or favorable sentence instead what he was demanding earlier because of showing some sort of innocence regarding his guilt or for saving court’s time.

Reasons for introducing this concept in India:

1. Speedy disposal of criminal cases i.e., reduction in heavy backlogs.
2. Less time consuming
3. End of uncertainty of a case
4. Saving legal expenses of both the parties i.e., accused and state.
5. Less congestion in jails
6. Under present system, 75% to 90% of the criminal cases results in acquittal, in this situation it is preferable to introduce this concept in India.
7. It is not fair to keep the accused with hard-core criminals because if the accused is innocent then he will accept his guilt and, in this situation, it is not reasonable.

Benefits in respect of Victim:

a) He can easily get the compensation.
b) He can save himself from long drawn Judicial Process.
c) Less time and money consuming.

Benefits in respect of Accused:
a) In case of Minimum Punishment, he will get half punishment.
b) If no such punishment is provided, then he will get one fourth of the punishment provided.
c) He may release on probation or admonition.
d) He may get the gain of period already undergone in custody under section 428 of Cr.P.C.
e) No appeal lies against the judgment in favor of him.
f) Admission of accused cannot be used for any other purposes except for Plea-bargaining.
g) Less time and money consuming.

PLEA BARGAINING IN RECENT COURT JUDGEMENTS

In one recent case of Mumbai, published in ‘Times of India’ wherein, a Grade-I employee of RBI, was accused of siphoning off Rs 1.48 crore from the RBI by issuing vouchers against fictitious names from 1993 to 1997 and transferring the money to his personal account. He was arrested by the CBI in the year 1997, and released on bail in November the same year. Charges were framed and case came before Special CBI Judge.

The accused stated that he is 58 years old and moved an application of plea- bargaining by taking benefit of the amendment of 2005, came into force in 2006. The court directed the prosecution for its response. The court rejected the application but from that time, it has opened the doors and new hope in the minds of other accused.

In other case of Vijay Moses das Vs. CBI ¹(Criminal Misc. Application 1037/2006), Uttarakhand High Court (Justice Prafulla Pant) in March 2010 allowed the concept of plea-bargaining, wherein accused was charged under section 420, 468 and 471 of IPC. In the said case, Accused supplied inferior material to ONGC and that too at a wrong Port, which caused immense losses to ONGC, then investigation was done through CBI by lodging a criminal case against the accused. Notwithstanding the fact that ONGC (Victim) and CBI (Prosecution) had no objection to the Plea-bargaining Application, the trial court rejected the application on the ground that the Affidavit u/s (265-B) was not filed by the accused and also the compensation was not fixed. The Hon’ble High Court allowed the Misc. Application by directing the trial court to accept the plea-bargaining application.

In Ranbir Singh v. State² the petitioner challenged the sentence imposed to imprisonment for six months in addition to the penalty of Rs.5000 under section 304 IPC and in default to be subjected to additional imprisonment for one month, as well as the sentence to pay the fine of Rs. 5,000 under Section 279 IPC and in default of payment of the fine to be subjected to simple imprisonment for an additional month.

The Trial Court has the power to impose a sentence of 1/4th of the sentence for imprisonment. Even then, the learned Trial Court is obliged to look into the mitigating circumstances.

None of the mitigating conditions were taken into account in granting full penalty. Petitioner is the only bread-earner and is assisted by two minor children and elderly parents. The Petitioner gave the victims monetary compensation.

He has also reported the affidavit of the deceased’s legal heirs to state that the parties have entered into a settlement and there is no dispute between them. On the other hand, the prosecution contended that the crimes of killing by reckless and careless driving under Section 304A IPC are on the rise and stern action was required to deter impact.

Section 265E CrPC allowed the Court to enforce a sentence of 1/4th of the fine, including in respect of mutually acceptable deposition between the parties.

In addition, the trial court’s judgment is final and no appeal is brought against it as specified in Section 265G of the code.

Delhi High Court held that while it cannot be concluded that, under these mitigating circumstances, no imprisonment should be granted to the petitioner and should be released, he should not, however, have been offered the full penalty as the learned Trial Court has done. The court amended the sentence to four months in prison under section 304A of IPC and a fine of Rs. 1,000/- Section 279 of IPC.

In the case Rahul Kumpawat v. Union of India³, the petitioner brought a miscellaneous criminal petition before the high court of Rajasthan challenging the order of the trial court which dismissed the application submitted by the former for plea bargaining in the instant case. The counsel argued that the order dismissing the said application was devoid of merit. There were no reasons for its dismissal, doing the same was against the spirit of Section 265A of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The counsel firmly contended that the object behind introducing Section 265A was to minimise the time of criminal trial. The learned trial court, by not following the spirit of the said Section in the instant case, has abused the same. These contentions were regarded by the High Court of Rajasthan as meritorious. It was noted that for the ensuing of justice the said order of the trial court ought to be set aside. The needful was hence done by the High Court.

CONCLUSION

Even the Supreme Court has upheld that delay of one year in the commencement of trial is bad enough; how much worse could it be when the delay is as long as three or five or seven to ten years or more. Speedy trial is the essence of criminal justice and there is no doubt that delays in trial itself constitutes denial of justice. Initially, the concept of plea- bargaining was criticized by a group of society including legal experts and intellectuals by stating that it will demoralize the public confidence in criminal justice system and also lead to lesser penalties to rich class, conviction of innocent people and therefore, it has become disputed concept now. Today, it is used by all great countries like USA, Europe, Canada and some authorities stated that the prevalent conditions in India are very different from US, even then to meet out the huge backlog of cases in India and ultimately it will have to be done with the consent of both the parties i.e., accused and prosecution, then what undermines? Therefore, India cannot abstain itself for this law. This practice has been accepted by Indian Judiciary. It can reduce the heavy backlog of cases in Indian courts; as it requires today and we hope that overburdened criminal courts will soon get a relief with it and rate of disposing will become rapid. According to the statistics of Delhi till 17/01/2011, out of 8630 total cases, only 4129 cases have settled and there is no statistic which show that in how many cases plea-bargaining was demanded but even then, only 309 were declared in which it was rejected. It shows the heavy backlog under Indian Courts and application of plea- bargaining.

When the process is complete and the quantum of punishment and possibility of the probation is finished, we can say that the victims are not the forgotten actor rather they have become a key player in the criminal justice system.

According to the view of a Judge of Delhi High Court ‘over three crore cases are pending in Indian courts. Plea-bargaining will solve cases involving petty offences and the courts will concentrate on more serious offences. Indian jails have capacity of 2.56 lakh prisoners but there are more than five lakh prisoners behind bars. The State governments spend more than rupee 55 per day on each prisoner and annual expenditure comes up to Rs 361 crore. This huge amount is spending by our Indian government to maintain these prisoners just because of delayed criminal justice system. Plea- bargaining will help in reducing backlog under Indian Judiciary and number of prisoners in jails also although the Constitutional obligation to provide speedy trial is also being fulfilled.

1.Criminal Misc. Application (C-482) No.1037 of 2006

2.CRM-M-27714 of 2020

3.CRIMINAL MISC.(PET.) (CRLMP) NO.2257 of 2015