Plea bargaining to scale back case backlog in courts

By Express News Service
KOZHIKODE: The social defence coverage additionally envisions to streamline plea bargaining and compounding of circumstances in order to scale back the variety of pending circumstances in courts. Plea bargaining is giving the suitable to regulation officer to settle pending circumstances which come within the class of non-heinous offences with the permission of each the complainant and the defendant after negotiation. 

“As many as 13.27 lakh criminal cases are pending in the courts in Kerala. Though the CrPC has been amended to make use of plea bargaining, it has not reached the common public. The social defence system needs to be strengthened for spreading awareness,” says the coverage doc. A majority of such circumstances are more likely to be thought-about underneath the Probation Act additionally to let prisoners free underneath ‘good behaviour’. Hence, the coordination of judicial, residence, regulation and probation programs is mooted. 

The consciousness programme must be began inside six months. The probation workers within the Social Justice Department will present counselling to the stakeholders in every case. Reacting to this, Nisar Ahamed, member secretary, Kerala Legal Services Authority (KeLSA). mentioned plea bargaining is feasible in circumstances the place the decision is proscribed to paying a superb and superb or imprisonment. “It is not practical in cases where mandatory imprisonment was pronounced,” he mentioned.