Corruption case acquittal rate higher than conviction: National crime data

New Delhi: For every person convicted and jailed for corruption, more two are acquitted in court for want of evidence or other reasons, if one goes by latest national crime data.

The ‘Crime in India’ report released earlier this week showed 976 people were convicted in corruption cases in 2023 while 2,010 were acquitted and another 124 discharged. Since 2018, this is the first time that the number of those acquitted was more than double the people convicted.

While the highest number of convicted persons were in 2018 when 1,251 were jailed against acquitting 1,996. In 2022, 852 people were convicted while 1,477 were acquitted.

In 2019, it was 1,092 and 1,720 respectively while in 2020 (431 convicted and 704 acquitted) and 2021 (482 and 871), the numbers were low apparently due to Covid-19 pandemic holding up court proceedings.

When it comes to persons discharged of charges, there were 125 such people in 2023 while it was 132, 105, 72, 112 and 94 between 2018 and 2022.

According to the report, 4,759 were arrested in 2023 with the highest number coming from Maharashtra at 1,092 people followed by Punjab (548) and Rajasthan (481).

Rajasthan had the highest acquittals at 486 against 163 convicted persons while Maharashtra had the highest convictions at 783 against 434 acquitted persons.

Karnataka saw 43 persons convicted in 2023 for corruption while 86 people were acquitted. Another 18 people were discharged of their charges.

According to the report, a total of 4,069 corruption cases were registered in 2023 against 4,139 in 2022 and 3,745 in 2021. In 2023, the highest number of cases were reported from Maharashtra (812) followed by Karnataka (362), Rajasthan (316) and Tamil Nadu (302).

Of the 4,069 cases, 2,875 were registered on the basis of laying traps on corrupt officers while 365 were disproportionate assets cases and 560 criminal misconduct cases.

At the end of 2023, 11,318 corruption cases, including 11,142 cases of previous years, were pending. In Karnataka, 1,448 cases were pending while Maharashtra had the highest pendency at 1,794 cases.