Should Plea Bargaining Be Allowed In Terror Cases?
Should Plea Bargaining Be Allowed In Terror Cases?
National Investigation Agency has laid a proposal to the law ministry on making the amendments in the NIA act. The agency wants to add in a special clause with respect to plea bargains. The Union home ministry has requested the law ministry to consider the proposal. As per existing provision, plea bargaining is only applicable in those cases where the victim gets the punishment up to seven years. A new proposal by the NIA wants plea bargaining to be made applicable for people accused in terror cases. Do you support the proposal?
Yes
• If it is applicable to criminals who get the punishment up to seven years, then there should be no problem in amending the law for all the criminals. Everyone should be treated equal.
• It will encourage truthful and voluntary confessions as the criminals will have a chance to get their punishments reduced.
• Time is a great resource, and plea bargaining will help the legal bodies to solve the terror cases in less time.
• The benefit is transferred to all the elements involved in the process including the courts. It will reduce the court congestion and will allow them to handle more cases.
• Plea bargaining in terror cases can reduce the death sentence to life imprisonment. It will support a noble human cause.
• Plea bargaining exists in the countries like Canada, England and the US, and therefore, it can be considered in India too.
No
• Plea Bargaining can become a tool for prosecutors to makeup false confessions and use it for their advantage.
• The best example is of David Headley, who was involved in the November 2008 26/11Mumbai terror attack and got plea bargaining in the US. It was a great failure for Indians.
• In countries like the US and England, the justice system is strong, however, in India it is not the same case.
• Plea bargaining can result in a high collateral damage as the innocent convicts can make false confessions to save their families.
• Plea bargaining can lead to poor police investigations as most of the attorneys and judges don’t have the time to handle multiple cases. They find it wise to make a deal instead of sincerely working on it.
Conclusion
Any form of legal changes should be made only after careful consideration. However, plea bargaining in India should not be encouraged. India doesn’t have a robust legal system. It has various loop holes benefitting the criminals. Allowing plea bargains in the terror cases will bring no good to the country. It will even hurt innocents, and, therefore, plea bargains should not be implemented in India.
Discussion
- RE: Should Plea Bargaining Be Allowed In Terror Cases? -Deepa Kaushik (10/06/14)
- Plea bargaining is a scope to be provided where we are confident of the country’s judicial system. As far as India is concerned, we are already aware of the consistency of our legal system. Our country dwells more on the loopholes with minimum or negligible reliability factor. We are pondered with all sorts of ill-factors viz corruption, foul play, poverty, emotional influence and much more. With all such factors top hover around, we have paved way for as many loop-holes to make their way into the legal system.
Plea bargaining is already prevailing in the cases with seven years sentence. If we get to analyse those cases, we could find the bad impacts of the scope of plea bargaining that is already spreading out its fangs. A person who is found guilty of committing a crime is and should be punishable without any scope of leniency. The more we are lenient in our judicial system, the less secure are our citizens.
India is already a regular victim of terror attacks. People here are always at risk. But life doesn’t stop any point for anyone. We are sportive enough to fight our life with every next moment. This doesn’t simply mean to dig our own pit. Plea bargaining in terror cases is like digging our own pit. This move is worthy in case the accused has actually realized his mistake and wants to get back to a life of normalcy. Such a scenario is rarest and we cannot make a big gateway for the loophole to release the terror accused much prior and expect some more terrible attacks on us.
If we are comparing other countries for such a factor of plea bargaining, we should also compare their judicial system, the confidence of the masses on their legal proceedings, the number of cases pending in their judicial book, the corruption prevailing etc. etc. Keeping a whole lot of objectionable factors, we cannot think of allowing Plea bargaining in terror cases in India in the present scenario.
