Data submitted by the State government before the Madras High Court on Wednesday revealed that the rate of conviction in cases related to crimes against women and children was not very promising. It also disclosed that the conviction rate had been on a decline since 2016 and a majority of cases are either under investigation or pending trial.
The statistics were submitted on behalf of the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police before a Division Bench of Justices Huluvadi G. Ramesh and M. Dhandapani who were seized of a public interest litigation petition filed by advocate A.P. Suryaprakasam seeking a direction to the State government to take stringent steps to curb such crimes.
A status report filed on behalf of the two top officials stated that though 11,625 cases of crimes against women and children were reported across the State in 2016, only 257 of them had ended up in conviction. On the other hand, the rate of acquittal was much higher that year with the accused in as many as 1,244 cases having been declared not guilty by the trial courts.
The statistics also pointed out that 1,002 cases booked that year were still under investigation; 5,239 were pending trial and 1,922 were awaiting lower court orders on taking the charge-sheets on file.
Similarly, out of 10,677 cases reported in 2017, only 121 had ended up in conviction and the accused in 366 cases were acquitted from all charges.
Apart from State-wide data, the officials also submitted district-wise statistics and the latter brought to light that Tirunelveli had been consistently topping the list when it came to the place from where most number of crimes against women and children had been reported. While 1,097 cases were reported from the district in 2016, the figure rose to 1,138 in 2017.
Even this year, as many as 383 cases had been reported from the district in just four months between January 1 and April 30. In 2016, Madurai stood second in the list by recording as many as 977 cases reported in police stations and it was followed by Thoothukudi (832), Villupuram (826) and Chennai city (710).
However, in 2017, Villupuram took the second place with 831 cases reported in that district and Madurai (713), Thoothukudi (707) and Chennai city (663) followed it. In the current year, the first four districts to top the list were Tirunelveli (383), Chennai city (267), Thoothukudi (245) and Kanniyakumari (244).
Dismal record
Curiously, though Tirunelveli had been recording the highest number of incidents of crimes against women and children, the conviction rate in the district was very dismal; in fact, the rate of acquittal was on the higher side. In 2016, just six cases ended up in conviction in the district as against 124 that had ended up in acquittal.
Nevertheless, without going into the specifics, a general submission was made before the Division Bench that efforts taken by the State government to prevent crimes against women and children had borne fruits since the number of cases reported in 2017 had decreased by almost 1,000 cases compared to the figures registered in 2016.
“The crimes against women and children are in a declining trend and sincere efforts are being taken to prevent such crimes,” the status report claimed.
After recording its contents, the judges closed the PIL petition with a direction to the police to take all necessary steps to prevent as well as prosecute such crimes.