New Delhi: While the judiciary finds itself burdened with a huge number of pending cases, a court has shown a way out by disposing of 51 cases in a day by giving an opportunity to the accused to confess their guilt under "plea bargaining".
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kamini Lau decided all the cases on Friday, mostly pertaining to violations of the Passport Act, after the prosecution and defence reached a mutual understanding with the consent of the accused under the concept of plea bargaining.
Plea bargaining, according to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2005, is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor and accused arrange to settle the case with the latter pleading guilty in exchange for concessions, including reduction of prison terms.
In an example for other courts fighting hard to shed the burden of ever-increasing number of cases with the disposal rate not matching the filing rate, the court decided 51 cases, some of which dated as far back as a decade.
Earlier, the court examined all the accused in camera and only after being satisfied that they had filed their applications voluntarily, asked the public prosecutor to arrive at a mutually satisfactory way out.
It then accepted their pleas and imposed on each accused a penalty of Rs 5,000 for flouting provisions of the Passport Act.
Taking a lenient view due to their voluntarily pleading guilty, the court subsequently ordered the release of the accused from the cases. In some cases, the court considered the period of imprisonment undergone by them while putting an end to their legal wrangles.
With inputs from PTI
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