Date: 17/03/2023

Relevance: GS-2: Mechanisms, Laws, Institutions and Bodies constituted for the Protection and Betterment of these Vulnerable Sections.

Key Phrases: Crime And Criminals Information System (CCIS), Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA), Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS), Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS), Bundling of Services, Model Police Acts (Bills), One Police” And “One Prison”

Why in News?

• As the number of fraudulent activities increases significantly across the country, CCTNS enables users to look up fraudsters for offences like impersonation, forgery, cheating, and other offences.

Issues With The Criminal Justice System In India:

• There are weaknesses in each link and investigation rates vary, depending on the state and the nature of crime.
• For IPC (Indian Penal Code) crimes, investigation rates are around only 65 per cent with no records of the other 35%.
• Moreover, an investigation does not necessarily lead to an FIR or charge-sheet.
• The investigation rates are more than 95 per cent in Gujarat, whereas it is just about 45 per cent in Jharkhand.
• Charge-sheeting rates (as percentage of cases investigated) also vary widely across states. For IPC crimes, the all-India average is just over 72 per cent.
• It is over 90 per cent in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala and West Bengal, while it is less than 40 per cent in Assam.

Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS):

• CCTNS project, was started in 2009, with a total approved outlay of Rs 2000 Crore.
• It connects police stations, digitises FIR registration, investigation, and charge sheets.
• CCTNS also maintains a national database of crime and criminals. In all, it is about enhanced e-governance in a more general sense.
• CCTNS has been a work in progress for some time, with earlier initiatives like Crime and Criminals Information System (CCIS) and Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA) as precursors.
• CCTNS feeds into the Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) which covers e-courts, e-prisons, forensics and prosecution, leveraging technology to make criminal justice delivery more efficient.

Objectives of CCTNS:

• Achieve computerization of Police Processes (FIRs, Investigations, Challans)
• Provide pan India search on National database of Crime & Criminal records
• Generate Crime and Criminal reports at State and Center
• Provide Citizen Centric Police Services via a web portal
• Sharing of Crime and Criminal data among Police Stations, Courts, Prisons, Forensics and Prosecution for more effective justice delivery.

Implementation Framework:

• CCTNS has been implemented in alignment with the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) principle of "centralized planning and de-centralized implementation".

• MHA and NCRB are playing a key role in planning the program in collaboration with the Police leadership within States, in the development of a few core components and in monitoring and reviewing the program.
• The role of the Centre (MHA and NCRB) focuses primarily around planning, providing the Core Application Software (CAS) (to be configured, customized, enhanced and deployed in States.
• It is, however, the States and UTs drive the planning and implementation at the State level.
• The central feature of CCTNS implementation at the State level is the "bundling of services" concept.
• According to this, each State selected one System Integrator (SI) who is the single point of contact for the State for all the components of CCTNS.

Annual Ranking of Police Station With CCTNS:

• The Ministry of Home Affairs does an annual ranking of police stations, based on objective data (with an 80 per cent weight) and a survey-based assessment (with 20 per cent weight).
• In 2022, Aska in Ganjam (Odisha) was ranked the best police station.
• CCTNS doesn’t enter the ranking directly, though indirectly, it does.
• The short-listing for a state (UT) is done on the basis of CCTNS.
• If CCTNS isn’t used, there is no chance of a police station being short-listed.
• Across states, there is a separate Pragati dashboard on different aspects of CCTNS – infrastructure, manpower and use of the database.

Variability Among States:

• In West Bengal, only 77% of police stations are connected to CCTNS, despite the fact that 97% of police stations may have been (as of January 2022).
• In Bihar, 0% of data records has been forwarded.
• Under-staffing (both vacancies and filling of vacancies) being one.
• In 2016, the MHA brought out a model prison manual.
• Many states haven’t adopted this and have not updated their old prison manuals.

Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS):

• The scope of the CCTNS project has been further enhanced to integrate the Police data with other pillars of the criminal justice system namely- Courts, Prisons, Prosecution, Forensics and FingerPrints and accordingly a new system- “Integrated Criminal Justice System (ICJS)” has been developed.

Need For e-Prisons:

• Prisoners need to have access to Aadhaar, for enrolment and upgradation as it will make prison administration easier.
• Of course, aadhaar cannot be made compulsory because a prisoner cannot be considered a recipient of government assistance.
• Yet, even in cases where it is not mandatory, the use of Aadhaar for voluntary authentication has become popular across a range of services.

Way Ahead:

• It is important to standardise, harmonise, and integrate the criminal justice systems.
• After all, a citizen should be entitled to the same level of law and order, regardless of residence and the CCTNS is designed to achieve that.
• There are around 17,000 police stations and more than 97 per cent have CCTNS software and connectivity.
• Digitising data, ensuring data migration, feeding FIR registration into CCTNS, launching citizen portals, etc. are the desired interventions objectives.
• However, just as prefixing the letter “e” in e-governance does not automatically improve governance, the CCTNS tool facilitates, but does not automatically improve police performance.

Conclusion:

• The agenda of police reforms has been stuck for years.
• Like the model prison manual, nothing much emerged through Model Police Acts (Bills).
• India is far away from the principles of one country – “one police” and “one prison”.
• In this aspect of governance, if states belong to two different worlds, no matter how good a tool CCTNS is, the benefits will fall short.

Source: The Indian Express

Mains Question:

Q. The number of fraudulent actions is rising exponentially across the nation, and CCTNS allows users to look up fraudsters for offences like impersonation, forgery, cheating and other offences.
Examine. (250 Words).