India, proud of its dynamic democratic credentials, has over the years allowed a criminal justice system to develop that shields the accused far more than it supports victims or protects witnesses ~ an unfair imbalance left unchecked as reform proposals have consistently failed to see the light of day. The vibrancy of its elections, the scale of citizen participation, and the resilience of its democratic institutions are undeniable, yet these strengths have not translated into a justice framework that inspires equal confidence.
The imbalance remains stark: while the accused, especially the powerful, find protection in procedure and delay, victims and ordinary citizens are left waiting for fairness that often never arrives. The principle of presuming innocence was meant to safeguard liberty, but in India it has morphed into a shield for the powerful. Legislators with criminal records contest elections while trials drag on. Over 40 per cent of MPs face criminal cases, including murder, kidnapping and crimes against women. This is no aberration but a structural imbalance that corrodes faith in justice and turns lawmakers into lawbreakers. When those accused of grave crimes continue to legislate, the system itself stands accused of complicity.
The bail system illustrates this imbalance vividly. Bail is supposed to prevent arbitrary detention, but in reality it is a privilege of the rich and influential. High-profile controversies in recent years, including the cancellation of bail for Olympian Sushil Kumar in 2025, have shown how liberty can be misused to intimidate witnesses and obstruct justice. Yet countless political figures continue to exploit bail provisions, walking free while victims wait endlessly for closure. The poor, meanwhile, languish in jails as undertrials, unable to furnish sureties or navigate the complex procedures. The National Crime Records Bureau reported in 2025 that nearly three quarters of prisoners were undertrials, amounting to close to four lakh individuals. Many languish longer than the maximum sentence for their alleged offences.
Custodial deaths in Uttar Pradesh’s Pratapgarh and Sultanpur jails in April 2026 underline the human cost of delay and neglect. Overcrowding in prisons has crossed 120 per cent occupancy, and nearly half of undertrials are aged between 18 and 30, showing how the young are disproportionately trapped in the system. The contrast between the liberty enjoyed by the powerful and the confinement suffered by the poor is stark and corrosive. Conviction rates remain dismal. While specialised agencies like the National Investigation Agency boast over 90 per cent conviction in terror cases, the overall conviction rate for ordinary crimes hovers around 20 to 25 per cent, far below global standards.
This means acquittals are the norm, not the exception, eroding public faith in justice. The Jessica Lal case, where a model was shot in front of 100 witnesses yet the accused initially walked free, exposed how money and muscle power can bend justice. Priyadarshini Mattoo’s murder trial revealed how faulty investigations forced a judge to acquit a man he believed guilty. The Best Bakery case showed how witnesses were coerced into silence. The Nithari case revealed how poor families begging for help were brushed aside by police, while the child of a corporate executive received immediate attention.
These cases are not relics of the past; they are symptoms of a system that continues to favour the accused over the victim. Each case demonstrates how the presumption of innocence, when stretched beyond reason, becomes a licence for impunity. The message to society is clear: if you have money, muscle, or political patronage, the law bends in your favour. Victims in India are reduced to mere pieces of evidence. Their suffering is ignored, their rights to reparation sidelined. Witnesses fare no better. They are threatened, bribed, or abandoned. In January 2026, the Supreme Court clarified that witness intimidation, under Section 398 BNSS, is a cognizable offence, allowing police to register FIRs directly. Yet statutory protection remains weak.
Witnesses continue to turn hostile, victims continue to be sidelined, and justice continues to be delayed. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, enacted in 2023, introduced provisions against false evidence and witness intimidation, even mandating electronic summons and digital recording of statements. But without enforcement, these remain cosmetic. The Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam recognised electronic and digital records as primary evidence, reducing reliance on oral testimony, but this has not translated into stronger protection for witnesses or faster trials.
The reality remains that witnesses are left vulnerable to threats, inducements, and coercion, and victims are left to fend for themselves in a system that treats them as incidental. In other democracies, witness protection is statutory and robust, with relocation programmes and anonymity provisions. India’s failure to provide similar safeguards is a glaring omission. The investigative machinery remains deeply compromised, shaped more by political control than by professional standards. Police continue to be rude, poorly trained, and governed by the colonial Police Act of 1861, a statute designed to protect rulers rather than serve citizens, zealously preserved by successive governments.
Transfers are wielded as instruments of reward or punishment, ensuring that officers who toe the political line are promoted while those who act independently are sidelined. The Malimath Committee in 2000 sought stronger prosecution, victim rights, and modernised investigation, while the Padmanabhan Committee urged separation of policing from investigation and insulation from political interference. Yet their clear recommendations never resonated with the political establishment, and both reports have gathered dust for over two decades. This refusal to implement reform is deliberate, for politicians benefit from a police force that can be manipulated, investigations that can be stalled, and prosecutions that can be weakened.
Comparative experience shows that countries which separated investigation from law-and-order policing achieved higher conviction rates and greater public trust, while India’s conscious choice to resist such change has preserved patronage at the cost of justice. Delay has become the bane of Indian justice. With over five crore cases pending, unfilled judicial vacancies, and adjournments granted on flimsy grounds, victims wait decades while accused exploit delay to contest elections, intimidate witnesses, or simply outlive trial. The maxim that ten guilty may go free rather than one innocent suffer has been stretched to absurdity. Miscarriage of justice now arises as much from acquitting the guilty as convicting the innocent.
Indulgence toward the accused has bred a culture where crime pays and lawbreakers thrive as lawmakers. Reform is urgent: expand the number of courts, both fast track and regular, alongside stricter limits on adjournments and accountability for delay. Without this, the backlog will swell and justice remains a distant dream. Other nations dispose of corruption and election cases within a year; India’s refusal to adopt similar timelines betrays a lack of political will. The imbalance can be corrected, but only with political will and systemic reform. More fast track and mediation courts, plus summary trials, must be introduced to clear petty offences quickly, freeing judges to focus on serious crimes. Independent investigative police streams must be created at district levels, modernised with technology, and freed from political control.
Candidates with framed charges must be disqualified to break the nexus of crime and politics. A statutory witness protection scheme must be enforced with real teeth, not cosmetic provisions. Legal education and aid must be expanded for the poor to prevent undertrial exploitation and empower citizens. Only by enlarging judicial capacity, curbing adjournments, and holding judges accountable for delays can justice move from promise to reality. Despite repeated committees and new reformative laws, the ultimate aim of improving the quality and timeliness of justice remains elusive. Until political influence is severed from investigation and custody, no reform can truly succeed.
It may sound ambitious, but there is no other way out – justice cannot flourish while politics controls police and prosecution and as a result ‘justice will not be only delayed but will also be destroyed’. India cannot afford a justice system where victims are abandoned, witnesses silenced, and undertrials forgotten, while the accused ~ especially the powerful ~ exploit loopholes to walk free. Justice must protect the innocent, but it must also punish the guilty. When lawmakers wear the cloak of lawbreakers, justice itself stands accused and the people are left unprotected.
The writer is a retired Air Commodore, VSM, of the Indian Air Force