More than six thousand atrocity cases against Dalits and Adivasis have piled up before courts in Tamil Nadu over the last 30 years without a resolution in sight. The oldest of these cases dates back to 1992. The evidence trail, in this case, has run cold in these 30 years and the NGO Citizens Monitoring and Vigilance Committee (CVMC) that analysed the data could not find basic details about the case as the chargesheet has become untraceable. The exact date of the incident and the location of the crime has been lost to time. The possibility that the victim is still alive is also slim.
If we take into consideration the procedural delays that occur at every stage after a caste crime occurs, it is possible that the crime could have occurred even two years before the chargesheet was filed. This means that the crime could have occurred anytime between January 30, 1990 – the date the Prevention of Atrocities Against Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Act was notified – and 1992, the year the chargesheet was filed.
In Tamil Nadu, 6,265 cases registered under the Act are pending trial from 1992 to September 2022. A detailed breakdown of pending cases year-wise is available from 1992 to 2021 on the website of the CVMC. According to this data, there is at least one atrocity case pending for every year of this period. There were two cases in 1993, three cases in 1994, one case in 1995, three cases in 1996 and so on, adding up to 5,735 by August 2021. By the time the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data was released for the whole of 2021, Tamil Nadu recorded 5,313 pending cases in that year. This appears to suggest that 423 cases went to trial in just five months, which is a considerable number.
Another element that leaps out from the data is that within 14 months, between July 2021 and September 2022, 530 cases were chargesheeted. It is to be noted that this sudden spike in the number of chargesheets follows a regime change in the state after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) came to power in May of 2021, marking an end to a 10-year All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) rule.
Of the 29 SC/ST special courts across Tamil Nadu, the special court in Tirunelveli, which hears cases from Tirunelveli city, Tirunelveli district, Tenkasi and Kanyakumari districts, has a grim number of 822 cases pending trial — the highest in the state. The Madurai SC/ST special court, which caters to Madurai city and district has only a marginally lesser number of cases – 668, but it must be noted that the Madurai special court is hearing cases from fewer areas as compared to the Tirunelveli court. The Villupuram SC/ST special court ranks third in the number of cases pending trial (341) and the Srivilliputhur (291) has the fourth-highest number of pending cases.
In the event that cases finally go to trial, Tamil Nadu also consistently shows low conviction rates. The state recorded a marginal increase in conviction rates from 7.85% in 2018 to 12.84% in July 2021. Acquittal rates far outnumber convictions. A report brought out by the Madurai-based rights organisation, Evidence, showed that Tamil Nadu recorded only 13 convictions from 2016 to 2020 out of 300 cases registered under the Act.
Tamil Nadu’s dismal numbers are reflective of the national trend. India has a high percentage of delays at the investigative stage and in pendency in trials. In that regard, the country has a low conviction rate in cases that do go to trial. By 2021, according to data from NCRB, cases registered under the Act showed a pendency rate of 96%. Conviction rates, nationally, stood at 33.6%. In comparison, Tamil Nadu fares far better than Uttar Pradesh where 58,682 cases registered under the Act are pending trial, the highest in the country.
Of the five southern states, Karnataka had the highest number of cases pending trial (9,052). Andhra Pradesh, with 5,179 pending cases, was only marginally less than Tamil Nadu. With 3,544, Kerala had the lowest number of cases pending trial, though it is still a significant number.
For the year 2021, 450 cases were under investigation as of July. Of these, 198 cases (44%) were delayed simply because the police were awaiting community certificates. In this regard, it also merits looking at the pendency of verification of community certificates in various districts. Namakkal district topped Tamil Nadu in having the highest number of certificates pending verification (102) with Vellore at the second highest (95) and Salem district at the third highest (80).