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Dec 16 horror: How courts, cops dealt with rapes since 2012

By, New Delhi
Dec 16, 2022 11:49 AM IST

An HT analysis uses the Crime in India (CII) reports from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to answer these questions in detail in three charts

December 16 marks 10 years of the brutal gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in Delhi. How has India progressed in the reporting of rape crimes since then? Does the criminal justice system fare better in dealing with rape cases now? An HT analysis uses the Crime in India (CII) reports from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to answer these questions in detail.

Data on Delhi’s charge-sheeting rates for rape crimes are not available since NCRB stopped publishing this figure after 2015 (File Photo) PREMIUM
Data on Delhi’s charge-sheeting rates for rape crimes are not available since NCRB stopped publishing this figure after 2015 (File Photo)

Has reporting of rape cases increased?

Rape cases in India saw a sudden jump in 2013 and many believed this was the result of better reporting in the aftermath of the protests that followed the December 16 case. This trend continued till 2016 with the rape cases touching a peak of around 39,000. However, subsequent years saw a yearly decline in the reporting of rape cases. The number was around 31,600 in 2021, the lowest figure since 2013 (if one excludes the lower reporting in pandemic-affected 2020). To be sure, NCRB may not reflect the true state of rape crimes in the country since it can capture only the reported crimes.

Also Read: 10 yrs later, life goes on at scene of December 16 horror

A similar trend is also seen in Delhi. Rape cases saw almost a twofold increase from 572 in 2011 to 1,636 in 2013, and touched a peak of 2,199 in 2015. However, this number fell in the subsequent years, and it was 1,250 in 2021.

How efficient is the police in dealing with rape cases?

CII also gives information on the filing of charges before a court for rape crimes, offering a view on the efficiency of the police in dealing with registered rape cases. This is defined as the share of cases charge-sheeted by the police out of cases where the investigation is complete, which itself is a fraction of the cases registered. At the all-India level, this rate rose marginally by 1.6 percentage points to 95.4% in 2013 from 2011 (93.8%), and peaked at 96% in 2015. But it has been declining year-on-year since, except 2020 (when it rose by 0.7 percentage points to 82.2%). It was 80.4% in 2021, which is 15 percentage points lower than what it was eight years ago.

Data on Delhi’s charge-sheeting rates for rape crimes are not available since NCRB stopped publishing this figure after 2015. In 2015, Delhi’s charge-sheeting rate for rape cases stood as high as 98.3%.

On average, investigations were pending in around 29.3% of the cases registered across India in 2021.

How efficient are the courts in delivering justice?

While the police machinery may function efficiently in filing rape charges before the court, it is not always the case that the accused is convicted. NCRB data shows that conviction rates for rape cases went up marginally from 26.4% in 2011 to 27.1% in 2013. Even in 2021, this was only 28.6%, suggesting poor progress on this front in the past eight years.

“Looking at the conviction rates for rape is not enough. We need to look at IPC sections such as the insult to the modesty of women IPC (Sec. 509) and assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty (Sec. 354). Because, very often, what gets recorded as rape under Section 376, includes variety of other crimes. For example, a consensual physical relationship built on the false promise of marriage is recorded as rape,” said Kalpana Viswanath, a social entrepreneur and CEO of Safetipin.

Pendency is of equal concern. In 2011, 83.6% of rape cases were pending before the courts. This number has gradually increased over the years to 93.5% in 2021.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Pavitra Kanagaraj is a data journalist. She uses public and private datasets to cover economy, women, and politics. Prior to HT, she did macroeconomic research at UNESCAP and ERF. She co-founded the Rethinking Economics chapter at JNU in 2021.

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