An Insight into the Applicability of Plea Bargaining in India in Light of Judicial Pronouncements

Abstract

There has been a recent debate as to how to counter the problem of pendency of cases effectively without losing the essence of justice delivery system. In India, besides Plea Bargaining, compounding of offences is also possible. The time-tested procedure was always adopted by the stake holders, instead of the novel Plea Bargaining, which came in 2006. This paper analyses judicial approach to the procedure of Plea Bargaining, by providing a succinct account of all the major cases related to Plea Bargaining. The cases pertain to the pre amendment era, a buffer era and a post amendment era. The fact that there is very less awareness among the stake holders of the Plea-Bargaining procedure and over dependency on the compounding of offences that has really shadowed the utility of the Plea-Bargaining procedure and rendered the positive views of the judiciary in vain. The paper argues that despite the positive response from the judiciary, the procedure of Plea bargaining is heavily under-utilized which indicates towards the requirement of a major overhaul of the procedure itself.