More than 3,000 cases under ‘offences against state’ pending in Haryana courts: NCRB
Bhartesh Singh Thakur
Chandigarh, August 30
Just 13.6 per cent cases of “offences against state” ended in conviction in Haryana, while 3,124 cases were pending in courts at the end of 2021, according to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB)’s ‘Crime in India 2021’ report.
The offences against the state included sedition; imputation, assertions prejudicial to national integration; the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and the Official Secrets Act.
In 2021, 169 cases of offences against the state were registered in Haryana, which included 157 under the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, five for sedition, three under the Official Secrets Act, and two each for the Unlawful Activities Act and imputation, assertions prejudicial to national integration. A total of 151 people were arrested.
However, it is a dip from 2020 and 2019 when the police registered 199 cases and 572 cases respectively.
By the end of 2021, the police were able to file chargesheets in 60.2 per cent cases under investigation which also included those registered in previous years, while the pendency was 26.1 per cent. Thirty cases were found true but closed due to insufficient evidence, while 34 cases were declared false.
But the pendency of such cases before the Haryana courts is the third highest in the country, as per the NCRB’s report.
At the start of 2021, there were 3,159 cases pending before state courts from the previous year while 97 more were added as the police filed chargesheets. Now, out of 3,256 cases before the courts, 132 could be decided in one year. It included acquittals in 114 cases, where 162 people were let off. Just 18 cases ended in conviction resulting in punishment for 24 people. The conviction rate is 13.6 per cent.
In 2020 as well, just seven cases resulted in conviction while acquittals happened in 115 trials; the conviction rate was just 5.7 per cent.
At the end of 2021, 3,124 cases of “offences against state” were pending in the Haryana courts with pendency percentage of 95.9. Only Uttar Pradesh with 9,235 cases and Tamil Nadu with 4,918 cases had higher pending cases than Haryana.
The neighbouring state of Punjab had 151 cases while Himachal Pradesh had 244 cases of “offences against the state” pending before the courts by the end of 2021.
