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line of reasoning the Apex Court in Hussainara Khatoon v. Home Secretary, State of Bihar [16] has read the right to speedy trial and rightly so as being a part of the right to life and personal liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. This fundamental right notwithstanding there has been a tremendous back log of cases thereby putting at peril the nature of justice rendered by our criminal justice delivery system. On January 15, 2008, there were 2.5 crore criminal cases pending in various courts in India. [17] Due to the inefficiency of the criminal justice system to deliver speedy justice, the faith of public has been deeply eroded.

The various provisions of the chapter on Plea Bargaining introduced through the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2005 as Chapter XXI A in the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 have to be looked at in this background. The procedure is set in motion by an application made by the accused in the court in which such offence is pending for trial. [18] The application has to state the offence in relation to the accusation and must contain a declaration of voluntariness in an affidavit. [19] The provision of ‘voluntariness’ is an important safeguard with the onus being placed on the judge to ensure that this requirement is duly satisfied.

The preliminary requirements are that the person making the application must not have been convicted of the same offence earlier. [20] In India, plea bargaining can only be availed of for offenses wherein the punishment of imprisonment is not exceeding seven years and does not extend to offenses for which the punishment of death or of imprisonment for life or of imprisonment for a term exceeding 7 years has been provided for by the law for time being in force. [21] Further the alleged offence should not have been committed against a woman, child or constitute a socio-economic offence. [22] In effect this chapter is only applicable to those crimes that are not considered to be a potential threat to the society and aims to dispose off those cases that are not ‘very serious’ in nature. [23] It must be noted on the other hand the American system has no restriction on the jurisdiction in cases of plea bargaining.

The Public Prosecutor/Complainant (as the case may be) and accused have to reach a mutually satisfactory disposition which includes a compensation amount to be paid to the victim. [24] Thus the victim has to be included in the entire process. If the case has been initiated on police report than the officer who has investigated the case needs to be present. [25] The court will oversee the entire process of reaching the agreement to ensure that process was voluntary. [26] In the US, the settlement is out of court between the prosecutor and the defendant while in India there is active involvement of the court as an adjudicator between the accused and the prosecutor.

If the mutually satisfactory disposition is worked out then the court after awarding the compensation to the victim, will hear the parties on sentencing:

it may release the person on probation of good conduct or after admonition under section 360 of Code of Criminal Procedure, or deal with him under the provisions of Probation of Offenders Act, 1958; [27]

if a minimum sentence has been provided under the law, it may sentence the accused for half of such minimum sentence; [28]

if a minimum sentence is not provided then the c本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。