While the Monsoon Session of Parliament has so far failed to conduct any significant business amid a running conflict between the Narendra Modi government and the Opposition over the paper leak protests, the government on Friday introduced in the Rajya Sabha an amendment to the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, to make any insult to the national song “Vande Mataram” a criminal offence, granting it the same statutory protection currently given to the national anthem “Jana Gana Mana”.
However, an analysis of data published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that while the number of pending cases under the Act has been growing each year, only a handful have resulted in completed trials or convictions.
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Specific data on violations of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, which fall under the broader category of “offences against the state”, have been made available by the NCRB since 2014 in its annual “Crime in India” reports, with the latest such report published for 2024.
In the 11 year-period from 2014 to 2024, a total 699 cases of violations of the Act have been reported at an average rate of 64 cases per year. The number of cases per year has dipped below 50 in a single year only in the Covid-affected years of 2020 and 2021, with most cases reported in 2022 at 87. In 2024, the latest year for which data is available, there were 57 cases.
However, as a rate per lakh population, the number of such violations have been negligible compared to other criminal offences.
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But the data shows that neither the police nor the judiciary has been able to address these violations, with an average 48 cases pending investigation and an average 221 cases pending trial at year-end between 2014 and 2024.
In 2024, as many as 53 such cases were pending police investigation, including cases from previous years, and 358 cases were pending trial at the end of the year.
In 2014, there were 77 cases reported during the year and another 7 pending from previous years. That year, the police submitted chargesheets in 45 cases, accounting for 53.6% of all cases investigated by the police. In subsequent years, the chargesheeting rate only fell, including to as low as 31.3% in 2020 and 36.5% in 2024.
From 2014 to 2024, a total of 1,102 people have been arrested in cases of violations of the Act – 2020 alone saw 405 arrests, while there were 59 arrests in 2024. A total 962 individuals were chargesheeted in the same period, including 326 in 2023 alone, and 66 in 2024.
As far as the courts are concerned, in each year from 2014 to 2024, the number of cases pending trial at year-end has consistently risen. In 2014, the year ended with 85 cases pending trials; this figure rose to 358 in 2024 for a four-fold increase over 11 years. But on average, just 43 cases have been sent to trial each year, peaking at 52 in 2017 and dropping to 38 by 2024.
Another significant point is that in each year from 2014 to 2024, the number of acquittals has exceeded the number of convictions.
In 2024, for instance, the number of cases that ended in convictions stood at 6, while 10 cases saw acquittals. The highest number of convictions came in 2017 at 8 cases, though in 2020 and 2022 there were no convictions at all. As a share of total cases sent to trial, no more than 16% of cases ended in a conviction in a single year between 2014 and 2024. In this 11-year period, a total of 105 cases ended in acquittals and discharges, while just 44 cases ended in convictions.
From 2014 to 2024, just 60 individuals were convicted and as many as 153 were acquitted or discharged. In 2024, there were 6 convictions and 25 acquittals.
Moreover, the pendency rate of such cases has been above 90% in all but two years between 2014 and 2024. But even in those two years, the pendency rates were 89.7% in 2016 and 88.2% in 2017. In 2024, the pendency rate had hit 95.2%, just below the peak of 98.4% in 2022.