Conviction rate in police cases pitiful, need to shun third degree and embrace forensics: Shah

Union Home Minister Amit Shah Wednesday said conviction rate in criminal cases in the country is "very pitiful" and age-old police techniques like administering third degree to suspects and phone tapping will not yield the desired results in curbing crime.

Addressing the top brass of police organisations during the 49th Raising Day event of the BPRD here, he said use of forensic evidence is the need of the hour for police investigators to clinch convictions against criminals.

Shah gave a hint of things to come in future when he said that he has asked the BPRD to prepare a plan to have 'modus operandi bureaus' at the national and state-level and that the government is mulling making forensic evidence compulsory in all criminal cases where the quantum of punishment is seven years or more.

He said he has asked the BPRD, a national police think tank under the home ministry, to initiate a countrywide "consultative process" for effecting changes in CrPC (Criminal Procedure Code) and IPC (Indian Penal Code).

"All suggestions should be documented and recommendations should be sent to the ministry. There has been no change for a long time in CrPC and IPC and we should go forward on this," he said.

The BPRD, under the home ministry, is tasked with preparing and suggesting better working policies and technology solutions for the police forces and act as a national think tank on policing.

Shah then talked about the success rate of police investigations in courts.

"The conviction rate is very pitiful in the true sense. It cannot go like this in these times. This needs to be corrected and this can only be corrected when a probe is supported by forensic evidence."
"It is not always that the police gets a leadership with motivation. When such a leadership is not provided then the graph goes down. Things can be made better when we make systems institutionalised."