India’s criminal justice system is built on a framework that is over a century old – largely inherited from British colonial rule. While the law on paper promises equal justice, swift punishment for the guilty, and protection for the innocent, the reality on the ground tells a different story. The system is plagued by structural flaws that collectively undermine its very purpose: delivering justice. From faulty investigations and hostile witnesses to a deeply entrenched nexus between crime, money, and political power, these maladies have not only allowed criminals to walk free but have also imprisoned the innocent. Understanding these systemic failures is the first step toward demanding meaningful reform.
Table of Contents
A system designed for the accused, not the victim
One of the most fundamental criticisms of India’s criminal justice system is that it has evolved into an accused-centric system – where procedural safeguards, while necessary, often end up shielding the guilty rather than protecting the innocent. The adversarial model adopted from British law places the burden of proof entirely on the prosecution. As the Malimath Committee on Reforms of Criminal Justice System observed, under this model, the judge does not seek truth – the judge only determines whether the charge has been proved by the prosecution. Truth and proof are treated as two entirely separate matters, and it is proof – not truth – that decides a verdict.
This design means that even when judges and investigators privately know who the real culprit is, a technically flawed investigation or a missing piece of evidence can result in acquittal. The system’s procedural rigidity frequently benefits those who can afford skilled lawyers to exploit technicalities, while ordinary victims are left without redress. Former President R. Venkataraman captured this tension well, noting that the adversarial procedure is the opposite of India’s ancient ethos of panchayat justice, where the goal was finding truth rather than scoring procedural points.
The malady of faulty investigation
If there is one structural weakness that feeds almost every other problem in the system, it is the quality of criminal investigation. Research published in the Criminal Law Journal has found that the investigation process is routinely compromised by inadequate training among police personnel, insufficient resources, and outdated forensic practices. The result is a foundation built on sand – cases that collapse at trial because evidence was poorly collected, improperly preserved, or simply not gathered at all.
A former Director General of Police of Karnataka, reflecting on decades of experience, noted that the system mostly works for the benefit of the rich and the powerful, rather than for the innocent victim or the cause of justice. One critical bottleneck is custodial interrogation: police are frequently unable to re-examine an accused to verify the truthfulness of statements, because strict procedural rules – though meant to prevent abuse – also prevent effective evidence gathering. The Malimath Committee recommended court-supervised investigation as a remedy, where the magistrate actively monitors what evidence is being collected and directs the police accordingly. This would prevent lacunae from being discovered only at the trial stage, by which time it is often too late.
Witnesses turning hostile
Criminal cases in India depend heavily on witness testimony. Yet witnesses routinely turn hostile – a phenomenon so common that it has become a defining feature of high-profile trials. The Malimath Committee’s report noted that there is no robust witness protection law in India, leaving witnesses vulnerable to threats and inducements from the accused. The longer a trial drags on, the more opportunity the accused has to intimidate or buy off witnesses. Perjury, though a punishable offence, is rarely prosecuted. The result: even solid cases unravel because the very people who witnessed the crime suddenly “forget” what they saw.
Delayed justice and the undertrial crisis
India’s courts are staggering under the weight of an enormous backlog. As of August 2024, over 58 million cases were pending across Indian courts, with roughly 80% of them being criminal cases. The average conviction rate over two decades (2000-2022) has hovered around 42.5%, though recent NCRB data places it somewhat higher for IPC offences. The slower the courts move, the more people suffer – not just victims waiting for justice, but also the accused waiting for a verdict.
The undertrial crisis is a direct consequence of this delay. Over 75% of India’s prison population are undertrials – people who have not been convicted of any offence. India’s prisons operate at around 130% of their capacity. This means thousands of people sit behind bars, some for longer than the maximum sentence they could have received even if convicted, simply because their trials have not concluded. As documentation by legal aid practitioners in Bihar shows, the prolonged wait in jail causes severe mental trauma, and in some cases leads innocent individuals to confess to crimes they never committed – just to end the ordeal.
Two standards of justice: one for the rich, one for the poor
Perhaps the most corrosive malady of all is the visible dual standard of justice that operates in India. The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies has documented that violations of fair trial rights mostly occur where the accused, victim, or witness is poor and illiterate. In contrast, those with money, knowledge, or power generally find their rights respected.
This disparity operates at every stage. At the point of arrest, marginalised individuals are often named as accused in multiple FIRs without sufficient evidence – because police need to show they have solved open cases. A person from a dominant social group, on the other hand, is rarely subjected to the same treatment. At the bail stage, the poor cannot arrange sureties and remain in jail; the wealthy secure bail within days. At trial, those with resources engage skilled defence lawyers who can challenge every piece of evidence; those without resources receive legal aid that is often inadequate. The Priyadarshini Mattoo case stands as a stark illustration – the accused’s privileged social status resulted in sub-standard investigation, and it was only sustained media pressure that eventually led to a CBI review and a conviction.
The dominance of money and political power
The deepest structural malady may be the nexus between crime syndicates, politicians, and law enforcement agencies – a nexus that effectively places powerful individuals above the law. The N.N. Vohra Committee, constituted in 1993 after the Mumbai serial bombings, was tasked with documenting exactly this overlap between crime and politics. The committee’s findings were considered so explosive that the report was never tabled in Parliament and remains sealed in government archives to this day. Successive governments chose not to make it public.
The data since then has only grown more alarming. The conviction rate for criminal cases against Members of Parliament and State Legislators stood at just 6%, even in cases transferred to specially constituted fast-track courts. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, candidates with declared criminal cases won 46% of contested seats – at roughly twice the success rate of candidates with clean records. As of 2025, approximately 30% of MPs and MLAs face serious criminal charges, defined as offences punishable by five or more years of imprisonment.
This is not merely a problem of bad apples. When elected representatives have a stake in protecting criminal networks, law enforcement agencies lose their independence. Police investigations into powerful individuals become half-hearted or are actively sabotaged. The Second Administrative Reforms Commission noted that the public widely perceives the police as corrupt, politically partisan, and unresponsive – a perception that directly erodes confidence in the justice system. When citizens believe that the law bends for the powerful, they stop reporting crimes, stop cooperating as witnesses, and stop trusting institutions. This erosion of public confidence is itself a malady that feeds every other dysfunction in the system.
The caste and class dimension
The dual standard of justice has a strong caste and class dimension that cannot be ignored. Courtrooms across India, especially at the district level, are overwhelmingly male and upper-caste, with high representation from socially dominant groups. When those who interpret and apply the law do not come from the communities most affected by systemic injustice, legal processes remain skewed. Deep-seated caste bias shapes who gets arrested on weak evidence, who gets bail, and who gets convicted. Legal aid exists as a constitutional guarantee under Article 39A, but its quality in practice is often inadequate for the most vulnerable – those who need it most.
What reform demands
Recognising these maladies is not an exercise in despair – it is a necessary precondition for reform. Several recommendations have been on the table for decades. The Malimath Committee called for court-supervised investigation and a shift toward an inquisitorial approach where judges actively pursue truth. The Supreme Court has repeatedly directed the establishment of Police Complaints Authorities and fast-track courts for cases involving elected representatives. The government’s extension of Fast Track Special Courts till 2026 is a step in the right direction, but it needs to be accompanied by deeper reforms: transparent election financing, prosecutorial autonomy, robust witness protection, and genuine investment in forensic infrastructure.
India’s new criminal laws – the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita – replace colonial-era codes and introduce timelines for investigation and trial. Whether they succeed in addressing these deep structural maladies will depend less on the text of the law and more on whether the political will exists to implement it without compromise.
What do you think? When the very people responsible for enforcing the law are shielded from it by political power, is legislative reform alone sufficient to restore public trust in the criminal justice system? And given that India’s conviction rates and undertrial population have remained largely unchanged across decades of reform attempts, what do you believe is the single most critical intervention needed – fixing investigation quality, reducing political interference, or ensuring equal access to legal representation?
References
- https://www.mha.gov.in/sites/default/files/2022-08/criminal_justice_system%5B1%5D.pdf
- https://www.criminallawjournal.org/article/106/4-2-25-150.pdf
- https://www.dakshindia.org/Daksh_Justice_in_India/30_chapter_03.xhtml
- https://www.nextias.com/ca/editorial-analysis/22-07-2025/india-criminal-justice-system
- https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/rebooting-india-s-criminal-justice-system
- https://idronline.org/article/social-justice/how-marginalised-people-are-left-behind-in-indias-criminal-justice-system/
- https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/cjm/article/great-divide-theory-and-practice-criminal-defence-laws-india
- https://adrindia.org/content/criminal-politician-nexus-is-a-structural-problem-undermining-internal-security
- https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/crime-politics-nexus-can-courts-alone-break-it46089
- https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/administrative-law/politicians-police-and-criminal-nexus-law-essays-2.php
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