Delhi tops list for arrests, second for acquittals and third for convictions

new delhi: The latest data from the National Crime Records Bureau showed that Delhi had topped the list of 19 metropolitan cities (with a population above 2 lakh) in terms of people arrested last year. However, the data also showed that the Capital was on the second spot as far as acquittals are concerned and came in at the third rank for convictions.

The data shows that as many as 1,24,552 people were arrested last year in the city whereas Chennai came in second with 1,14,365 arrests and in Mumbai, about 84,330 people were arrested in 2019. Meanwhile, Ahmedabad topped the list of cities in terms of acquittals as 14,083 people were acquitted last year in the city. Delhi ranked second with 13,422 acquittals and about 12,294 people were acquitted in Bengaluru.

Meanwhile, an official said that there are two types of acquittal, one is where an accused has been acquitted on the merits of the case whereas in another is based on the benefit of doubt, where the investigating agency ends up submitting insufficient proof against the accused.

But even with the acquittal numbers in Delhi, police here have chargesheeted 85,912 people last year, second in the list after Chennai, where 90,096 accused were chargesheeted. However, the Capital slipped by one rank when it came to convictions, coming in third with 23,243 convictions in 2019. Kochi had secured most convictions (60,281) in the category and next to it was Chennai (46,543).

The data further shows that about 3,443 people were discharged in Delhi whereas 2,826 were discharged in Jaipur and 2,567 in Mumbai.

The Commissioner of Police had earlier this year facilitated the constitution of a Directorate of Prosecution for the Delhi Police, for important cases which require special institutionalised legal attention on a case-to-case basis.