The New Normal of Crime Without Punishment: A Deepening Crisis in India's Justice Ecosystem

While India marches economically and digitally ahead, a quiet institutional crisis is in the making—a justice system increasingly normalizing crime without punishment. This phenomenon is turning out to undermine public faith in the rule of law. Prolongations of judicial process, political immunities, and loopholes embedded in the systems are all failing the Indian juridical paradigm.

As of March 2025, India boasts of having a whopping 5.21 crore pending cases, including 4.34 crore in the subordinate courts only. Interestingly, over 71% of these are in the trial stage, which indicates a critical backlog in judicial throughput. (Source: NJDG - https://njdg.ecourts.gov.in )

This backlog is not just an administrative concern but an existential one. It causes accused to walk free while trials take long periods of time, delayed sentencing, and a compromised deterrent against future criminality.

"Justice delayed is justice denied," former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan Lokur said again in a 2024 panel by India Justice Report (Tata Trusts). "There are judicial academies, what are they doing? Is it not the job of the judicial academies?" (Livelaw)

The Criminalization of Politics: A Dangerous Trend

found that 43% (233 out of 543 MPs) have had criminal cases filed against them, of which 29% are charged with serious offenses like attempted murder, crimes against women, and kidnapping. (Source: ADR 2023-24 Analysis: https://adrindia.org) In spite of recurring Supreme Court commands (2020–2023), political parties still nominate criminal candidates, corrupting legislative probity.

"In 2023, a Supreme Court bench had asked Parliament to disqualify candidates with serious allegations from running in elections, terming the trend "an affront to democratic purity." However, electoral victories take precedence over moral governance for most parties."

The incompetence of the law enforcement agencies aggravates the crisis. The 2024 PUCL report says that Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Chhattisgarh recorded the maximum cases of custodial violence and extra-judicial killings, which raised questions about institutional impunity and not reform

Moreover, powerful economic offenders like Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, and Vijay Mallya still exploit loopholes in the law and extradition delays, indicating a justice system more attuned to influence than evidence. While undertrial prisoners account for almost 77% of India's prison population (according to Prison Statistics India 2022, NCRB), several wait to be tried for petty offenses, without legal counsel in many cases—a sad irony when high-profile convicts get away scot-free.

The increasing chasm between power and punishment is most evident in economic offenses. From IL&FS scam to Adani-Hindenburg saga, probes are mired in delays or watered-down scrutiny, bringing the institutional autonomy of agencies like CBI, ED, and SEBI into question.

Additionally, figures from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) reveal subpar conviction rates of corporate fraud cases prosecuted under economic offenses, with intimations of a two-tiered justice framework—one for the elite and one for the common man.

Mob Justice and Digital Vigilantism: A Societal Side-Effect

As institutional justice systems become ever slower and unresponsive, a menacing social trend is in motion—the resurgence of mob justice and cyber-vigilantism. Borne from anger, misinformation, and the widening distrust in traditional legal recourse, citizens now more and more take the law into their own hands—on streets and through social media channels alike. It's not anecdotal; it's an emergent trend symptomatic of an even deeper breakdown of institutions.

The advent of mob justice has its origin in something far deeper than disorder. It is the product of years of collective resentment—years in which criminals go unpunished, trials seem to go on interminably, and the powerful walk free. The anger that burns secretly at last finds expression—not in appeals or petitions—but in fists, fire, and fury.

And the threat is exactly here: when law is far away, justice turns emotional. Individuals no longer wait for the verdict—they dispense their own. In the villages and towns, whispers are turned into accusations, and accusations into punishment. Sometimes it is about cattle, sometimes religion, sometimes mere suspicion. But the result is always the same—a life ruined before the truth gets a chance to speak.

The India Justice Report 2022, backed by Tata Trusts and several civil society partners, shows the systemic failures in the justice delivery system that often fuel people’s resort to mob or online justice. The full report is freely available for download here: (India Justice Report)

Conclusion

The slide into "crime without punishment" in India is no longer an abstract worry—it is a lived experience. With the line between power and punishment blurring increasingly, the Indian republic is faced with a chilling question: Can democracy hold out when its system of justice starts to pick and choose?

Unless courts, politics, and civic bodies choose reform, India may substitute its constitutional identity with a new normal of legality-concealing lawlessness—a future where justice is decorative, and accountability is optional.