How to fight criminal cases in India

Source – http://survive498a.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/how-to-fight-criminal-cases-in-india/

Every day several thousands false cases are done in India to implicate innocents. This article is an attempt to help those innocents in terms of money and escape root. This article is based on practical experience of husband of 498A woman in this blog. The husband is facing several false criminal cases and he has shared his experience with this blog.

How and why the false cases are done: False cases are done primarily to settle personal scores, to extort money and to take revenge. To do a false case one has to corrupt the police. Involvement of police is essential. Most of police officers get involved in these type of activities. The culprit approaches the police first in order to fabricate a false case. Police is bribed starting from Rs 1,000/- to Rs 1,00,000/- or more based on strength of case. The sections of law are laid under which the case would be done. The police officer suggests the non-bailable and cognizable sections so that they would get power to arrest the accused. For that the police officer takes extra charges. Nowadays this corruption technique is not practiced alone. The entire chain of junior and senior police officers are involved. Once the formula is set the action is played. The culprit lodges a police complaint. The police draws an FIR. If the accused is equally powerful then sometimes police informs the accused and takes money for not to arrest. In some cases police does the arrest of accused and for that extra money is taken from culprit. Now the case is started.

What happens after FIR: 

If police arrests you: Accused is kept in police custody. For certain facilities like providing home made food, mobile, temporary bed, allowing to sit on bench outside of custody room the police charges money. The money varies from Rs 30/- to Rs 5,000/- or more. In police custody you are kept with other under-trials. These people can be good or bad. But they would never misbehave with you. Withing 24 hours you would be placed before magistrate. You will be taken to court in police van. Police may tie a rope on your waist. If you pay then police may not tie a rope on you. You may be placed is a big hall in the court premises along with other criminals. Here you have to act tactfully. Other criminals may demand money from you otherwise they would beat you. Never get nervous. Try to show calm and cool. Behave like a criminal. Hurl abuses on others. Tell people that you are arrested for grave charges like murder, keeping illegal fire arms, rape etc. Then other criminals may not ask money from you. Face the other criminals boldly and do not pay them money. Here also the police helps transferring money to other criminals from you in case you surrender. The police has its own cut of share. In some courts there are VIP rooms. You can be put over there and not with other criminals in case you pay money. This ranges from Rs 500/- to Rs 1,000/-

You need to procure bail. There are professional pimps available in all criminal courts who sign bail bonds. In bailable offences the lower courts provide bail. You have to spend for lawyer fees and pay for bail bonds signed by pimps. Lawyers make arrangements for pimps. Pimps take percentage of bail given by magistrate. This percentage varies from 30% to 100%. Say you are granted a bail of Rs 1,000/-. The pimp would ask for Rs 300/- (30%) or say 1,000/- (100%). Little bit of bargaining can be done here. If non-bailable sections are laid in FIR then lower court generally does not give bail. You have to apply in High Court for bail. There is a public prosecutor. He is appointed by government. He religiously asks for your police custody (PC) for interrogation. If you are already in police custody for a few days and no interrogation is required he will ask for judicial custody (JC). In some cases these public prosecutors (PP) can be bribed. A bribed PP will just keep silent. PP can take from Rs 10,000/- to Rs 1,00,000/- for his silence. He would charge only when the bail is done. In case the magistrate does not give bail the PP would not charge. In some cases the magistrates have their cut from PP’s. Generally PP’s ask for huge money saying that they have to pay to magistrate.

If police does not arrest you: You need to procure anticipatory bail. Bail process is same as above. The role of PP is also the same. The lawyers charge higher fees for anticipatory bail. For non-bailable offences the lower courts generally reject the bail plea. In that case you need to move to high courts for anticipatory bail. In high courts lawyers charge heavy. They may charge between Rs 10,000/- to 3 lacs. There is no fixed rate for bail motions. In 498A cases the lawyers, pimps, PP’s and magistrates just mint money. If High Court also rejects anticipatory bail plea you have to move supreme court. Even after getting bail from High Court or Supreme Court you need to surrender before lower court and procure regular bail. The lower courts generally give interim bails and later on convert it to regular bail.

What happens after you procure bail: You get relieved for some time. Now is the time for police to submit charge sheet before court. The police gets influenced over here. If you strike a deal with police they have powers to release you. Almost in 90% cases police repeats the FIR in the charge sheet in routine manner. Police may take up to an year to place charge sheet. You will have dates over an interval of around 2 months in court. The lawyer may ask for Rs 500/- to 2,000/- for getting dates. Here you can save the money. Don’t pay to lawyers. Go straight to Peshkar of court (The person who places the case before magistrate). He will provide you the next date. He may charge around 100/- to 200/- for providing date. This is still cheaper than lawyer’s fees. You may approach the administrative department of court to get next date. If nobody co-operates then you may file application under RTI to find out the next date. This is the cheapest way. Draft a letter under RTI and give to administrative office in the court. If they refuse  to take it send them by registered post. You will certainly get reply. There is less corruption here. Before charge sheet your case will not start. You will only get dates after dates. The culprits may approach police to lay firm charges against you in exchange of money. Police generally does not put false allegations in charge sheet. At most they can copy the FIR in the charge sheet. They can also remove some sections from the charge sheet (CS). After charge sheet is filed your case will be transferred to a different court and it will start for trial.

Happenings during trial:

More information will be provided on this topic in due course.