Pay the wrongly prosecuted, punish deliberate false cases

At a glance

Problem

Three failures feed each other.

The State jails first and pays nothing when it is wrong. At the end of 2024, 3.71 lakh of India's 5.12 lakh prisoners (72.6%) had not been convicted of anything, and 9,028 of them had waited more than five years. During 2024, 60,298 undertrials left jail acquitted, and 11,971 convicts were freed on appeal. When a case ends in acquittal or discharge, the person gets their freedom back and nothing else: no payment for days in custody, legal fees, lost wages, a lost job or a damaged name. The Law Commission asked Parliament for a wrongful-prosecution law in August 2018. No government has introduced one.

Knowingly false cases are almost never punished. Making a false criminal charge to injure someone is already a crime (BNS Section 248, earlier IPC Section 211). But the falsely accused person usually has to start a fresh case after years of trial, often against people with more money or better connections. Courts can file a complaint themselves for offences connected to their own proceedings, but they have no duty to consider it and no deadline. A false complaint costs the complainant almost nothing. The accused pays with years.

Police can sell the threat. An FIR with heavy sections, or the threat of arrest, gives a police station leverage over a family. Families pay to avoid arrest, to have a section dropped, or to have one added against someone else. Nothing in the record shows who added which section, on what basis.

The SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act sits at the centre of this argument because it is strict, for good reason. In 2024 the police registered 55,698 crimes against Scheduled Castes and 9,966 against Scheduled Tribes, almost all of them under the Act. The Act bars anticipatory bail where a prima facie case exists, and since 2018 it has required no preliminary enquiry before an FIR and no approval before an arrest. Victims and their families say the Act is still too weak in practice: in 2024, courts convicted in 33.9% of the atrocity cases against Scheduled Castes that they decided, against 53.3% for all crimes, and 95.2% of such cases were still waiting for trial at the end of the year. People who say they were falsely accused say its strict rules are used as a weapon in land, money and family disputes.

Since 2018 the argument has swung back and forth. In March 2018 the Supreme Court added safeguards against misuse. After nationwide protests in which at least nine people died, Parliament reversed those safeguards in August 2018. The Court recalled its directions in 2019 and upheld the amendment in 2020. Each swing changed who could be arrested, and when. None of them paid people who were wrongly prosecuted, or reliably punished people who fabricated a case. Those are the gaps this reform fills, for every law and every complainant.

Evidence

Atrocity cases in 2024 (NCRB, Crime in India 2024)

Wrongful prosecution

• People held without conviction: on 31 December 2024, 3,71,440 of 5,11,542 prisoners (72.6%) were undertrials, and 9,028 of them had been held for more than five years. In 2024, 60,298 undertrials were released on acquittal, and courts acquitted or discharged 12.28 lakh people in IPC and BNS cases (NCRB, Prison Statistics India 2024 and Crime in India 2024).

• The Law Commission's 2018 plan was never enacted. Report No. 277 (August 2018) proposed special courts in every district to hear claims, payment by the government within 30 days, and interim compensation of ₹25,000 to ₹50,000 for people held more than six months. Claimants would have had to prove misconduct or bad faith. No government introduced it, and the 2023 criminal codes left it out.

• The Supreme Court says the gap is Parliament's to fill. In Kattavellai v State of Tamil Nadu (July 2025), it said a law to compensate people acquitted after long incarceration is needed, but that making one is Parliament's job. It also faulted the Law Commission for covering only malicious prosecution. In State of Madhya Pradesh v Bhure (August 2024), it set aside a High Court order that the State pay ₹3 lakh to an acquitted man, because failure to prove guilt did not establish false implication.

• Twenty years for a case that should never have been brought. Vishnu Tiwari of Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh, was arrested in 2000 on charges of rape and an offence under the SC/ST Act, and sentenced to life in 2003. His appeal sat in the High Court for 16 years. In 2021 the Allahabad High Court acquitted him, finding no medical evidence of the assault and noting a land dispute between the families, and said it was "convinced that the accused has been wrongly convicted". His parents and two brothers died while he was in jail, and the family sold its land to pay lawyers. No law entitled him to compensation. When petitions citing his case asked the Supreme Court for compensation guidelines, it said in 2022 that this was a matter for legislation.

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• Today's remedies are small or narrow. BNSS Section 273 lets a magistrate order a complainant to pay an acquitted person up to ₹50,000, and only in cases magistrates try. It does not reach cases in Sessions or Special Courts, where the most serious charges are heard.

False complaints and the SC/ST Act

• Relief has no recovery rule. The 2016 Rules set minimum relief from ₹85,000 to ₹8.25 lakh, usually paid 25% at the FIR, 50% at the charge sheet and 25% on conviction. 99,216 victims received relief in 2024-25. Neither the 2016 nor the 2018 rules say what happens to relief if a complaint is proved false.

• At least ₹104 crore went to cases that ended in 2024 without a conviction. Courts acquitted or discharged the accused in 13,823 atrocity cases that year, where at least 75% of relief (₹63,750 of the lowest amount, ₹85,000) had already been paid: ₹88.1 crore. Police closed 7,420 cases as "false", where the first 25% (₹21,250) had been paid: ₹15.8 crore. This is a floor, counting one victim per case at the lowest rate. Many cases have more victims or higher amounts. Courts have improvised: the Allahabad High Court ordered refunds of ₹75,000 in Lakshya Rawat (April 2024) and Vihari (September 2024), where complainants admitted filing false FIRs to obtain compensation. In August 2026 the same court heard that an advocate in Jhansi and his family had received ₹23.36 lakh in relief across several cases, with 10 to 12 more claims pending. It ordered an inquiry in Jhansi and a review of repeated relief claims across Uttar Pradesh, while stating that it had made no finding of misuse (Arvind Kumar v State of Uttar Pradesh). A single ledger with duplicate checks would show such patterns as they happen, not years later.

• False cases for hire. In October 2026 a Dainik Bhaskar sting in Bihar recorded a family offering to put anyone in jail under the SC/ST Act for ₹2.5 lakh. A woman from a Scheduled Caste would file the FIR, three relatives would be witnesses, and molestation and SC/ST Act sections would be added "as needed". The client had to supply only a name and a photograph. The complainant would also collect the government's relief, so the money came "from two sides". No police action had been reported a month later.

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• Some say it on camera. In a 2025 YouTube interview, a man from Bhatla village in Hisar, Haryana, said the Act was a "brahmastra" for Scheduled Castes: an insult from an upper-caste person meant a case "within 24 hours" and money in his account. He said he had himself filed a false SC/ST Act case against a man from his village, claiming he was beaten and abused. Police and courts have not tested his account.

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• Police can write the complaint themselves. The same investigation found a rape and SC/ST Act case in Muzaffarpur where the woman told the court that nothing had happened, and that a police officer had taken her thumbprint and prepared the complaint himself. In Patna, police found 148 of the 2,070 SC/ST Act cases registered between 2019 and 2024 to be false, according to an RTI reply the paper obtained.

• False-case rackets are not limited to one law. Police in Gurugram arrested a woman in 2021 who had filed seven rape cases against seven men at seven police stations, on charges of extortion. In May 2026, Belagavi police arrested a woman who had filed several rape and cheating cases against police officers and others; the superintendent said they were fabricated for extortion. The same month, Delhi Police's Crime Branch broke up a dating-app gang that posed as police, threatened a man with a false rape case and demanded ₹15 lakh. These are police accusations, not convictions.

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• Powerful complainants use the Act too. In January 2024, hours before his arrest, Jharkhand's then chief minister filed a complaint under the Act against four Enforcement Directorate officers who were investigating him. The Jharkhand High Court barred any coercive action against the officers. Their petition to quash the FIR was still pending in November 2026, after the court fined him ₹10,000 in October for seeking more time to reply.

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• Stacked charges can be undone, but slowly. In Hitesh Verma (November 2020), the Supreme Court quashed a charge under Section 3(1)(r) because the words were not spoken in public view, and let the assault-related charges go to trial. It took an appeal to the Supreme Court to get there.

• The Supreme Court has drawn the anticipatory-bail line. The bar applies only where the FIR prima facie discloses an offence under the Act, judged from the FIR without a mini-trial (Prathvi Raj Chauhan, February 2020; Shajan Skaria, August 2024; Kiran, September 2025).

• The Court will not strike the law down for misuse. On 22 September 2026 it dismissed a petition challenging the 2018 amendment. The Chief Justice said misuse should be handled by courts in individual cases.

What the numbers do and don't show. A police closure as "false" is the investigating officer's view, not a court's finding. An acquitted person is not guilty in law. No official source counts how many complaints a court has found deliberately fabricated, under any law. That missing number is part of the problem, and this reform makes the State count it.

What does not change

• Every complaint of a cognizable offence still becomes an FIR at once. There is no preliminary enquiry before an FIR and no approval before an arrest under the SC/ST Act (Section 18A stays).
• The bar on anticipatory bail in Section 18 of the SC/ST Act stays wherever the FIR shows a prima facie offence under the Act, as the Supreme Court has held.
• Relief to atrocity victims is still paid at the FIR and charge-sheet stages. It is never withheld because the accused says the case is false.
• An acquittal, a witness turning hostile, a compromise or a withdrawn complaint is never, by itself, evidence that a complaint was false.
• The same rules apply to every law (cruelty and dowry, sexual offences, child sexual abuse, atrocities, assault, fraud) and to every complainant, of every caste, religion and gender.

Proposal

1. Every judgment says what the court found

When a case ends without a conviction (acquittal, discharge, quashing, withdrawal of prosecution or an accepted closure report), the order must record, in a fixed format:

• The outcome on each charge, with a one-line reason: not proved, no evidence against this accused, or the evidence clears the accused (for example a proven alibi, or footage showing someone else).
• Custody: the number of days the accused spent in custody in this case, and the custody payment due under section 2.
• Fabrication: whether the record contains credible evidence that anyone deliberately invented the accusation or the evidence. If it does, the court must decide within 30 days, with reasons, whether to refer it for investigation under section 5. The accused, the complainant and the prosecutor are heard. Either side can challenge the decision before the High Court.

The verdict stays "acquitted". An acquitted person is innocent in law, whatever the reason. Scotland abolished its "not proven" verdict for trials starting on or after 1 January 2026, partly because it left acquitted people under a cloud. A finding that the evidence clears the accused goes in the reasons, where it can be shown to an employer, a visa officer or a neighbour.

Within 30 days of the order, the police must update the person's record in the crime and criminal tracking network (CCTNS). Every police verification certificate must then show the case as ended without conviction.

2. Custody pay, automatic

• A day's average income for every day spent in police or judicial custody in a prosecution that ends without a conviction. India's net national income per person was ₹2,08,090 in 2025-26, about ₹570 a day, so the rate starts at ₹600 and rises each year with that average. It pays for the loss of liberty itself, the same for everyone. Actual lost earnings are paid on top, in full, under section 3. A software developer earning ₹1 lakh a month who spends a month in custody gets ₹1 lakh in lost salary plus ₹18,000 in custody pay.
• The judgment orders it. No application and no lawyer are needed.
• Paid within 30 days from a State Wrongful Prosecution Compensation Fund, straight into the person's bank account. Late payment carries interest at 9% a year.
• Mixed cases: if the accused is convicted of some charges, custody counts towards the sentence, as it does today. Only days beyond the sentence finally imposed are paid. This covers someone convicted over a scuffle but held for months on an added charge that failed.
• No payment where the court records that the accused, or someone acting for them, threatened, paid or pressured a victim or witness; for custody after re-arrest when the accused had absconded; or where the accused knowingly misled the investigation into suspecting them.

3. Costs and lost earnings, on one form

Within six months of the order, the person can file a one-page claim in the same court for:

• Legal fees, at a published scale tied to what the State pays its own panel prosecutors for the same work.
• Hearing days: a fixed sum for each hearing they had to attend, covering travel and a day's wages.
• Lost earnings, in full and without a cap, while in custody, or while bail conditions stopped them working. Salaried and self-employed people show their actual income through salary slips, bank statements or tax returns. Informal workers without records are paid at least the State's minimum wage.
• Bail and surety costs, and medical costs caused by custody.

The court decides within 90 days, on the trial record and the claim's documents, on the balance of probabilities. The prosecution can contest amounts, but not the right to be paid. The same exclusions apply as for custody pay.

4. Full compensation when the case should never have been brought

If the court finds, on the balance of probabilities, that the prosecution was malicious or fabricated, or rested on official misconduct (an arrest without lawful reasons, planted or suppressed evidence, sections added without any basis), the person can also claim for:

• a lost job, business or place in education;
• harm to reputation, relationships and family;
• physical and mental harm;
• aggravated damages where officials acted in bad faith.

There is no cap on proven financial loss. The court assesses non-financial harm with reasons, guided by a published schedule. The State pays within 30 days of the order, whoever is to blame. Payment never waits for a wrongdoer's money or for a criminal trial. The State then recovers what it can: from officials after a disciplinary finding, and from private persons only after a criminal conviction for fabrication.

5. Punishing deliberate fabrication

• Who starts it: the court that decided the original case, on its own or on an application, by the referral in section 1. While the original case is pending, no FIR for fabrication can be registered against the complainant or a witness on the accused's word alone. Only the trial court can refer. The new law cannot be used to frighten complainants into withdrawing.

• Who investigates: a unit of the State CID that does not report to the district where the case arose, overseen by the State Police Complaints Authority. It reports within 90 days and can extend only with written reasons. A decision not to prosecute must give reasons and can be challenged.

• Who tries it: a different judge, with a target of six months from the framing of charges. Legal aid is available to the person accused of fabrication.

• What must be proved, beyond reasonable doubt: that the person knew the accusation or evidence was false, and made it to harm someone or to gain money or property. A mistaken identification, a confused memory, an exaggeration of a real incident or a section chosen by the police is not fabrication.

• Penalties: BNS Section 248 stays as the base offence. A new aggravated offence carries 2 to 10 years in prison and a fine paid to the falsely accused person, where the fabrication:

  • was done for money or by a group, including brokers who arrange false complaints for a share of relief money;
  • was committed or helped by a public servant;
  • repeats an earlier conviction for a false charge;
  • got an innocent person jailed; or
  • aimed to obtain relief or compensation from public funds.

  The court can go below two years only for exceptional reasons it records, and the prosecution can appeal. Like every new penalty, it applies only to acts after the law comes into force.

• Everyone who took part is liable: complainants, witnesses, officials, brokers and anyone who paid for the false case. A person who signed a complaint someone else wrote, under pressure, is not liable for what they did not know.

6. No more stacked sections or arrests for money

• Section particulars: every charge sheet must list, for each accused and each section, the specific act alleged and the evidence for it. A section without particulars cannot be framed as a charge.
• Early section review: within 30 days of receiving the charge sheet, an accused can ask the court to drop sections that have no prima facie basis. The court decides within 30 days, and the rest of the case continues. The Supreme Court did exactly this in Hitesh Verma (2020). This makes it routine and fast.
• Who added it: when a court drops a section for lack of any basis, the officer who added it must explain in writing. A pattern of such sections triggers an inquiry.
• Anticipatory bail under the SC/ST Act: the Act will state what the Supreme Court has already held. The bar applies where the FIR, read as it stands, discloses the ingredients of an offence under the Act. The court decides that from the FIR and the complaint, without a mini-trial (Prathvi Raj Chauhan, 2020; Shajan Skaria, 2024; Kiran, 2025). Where the FIR discloses no such offence, the bar does not apply.
• Arrest: for offences punishable with up to seven years, which include most offences under Section 3(1) of the SC/ST Act and most stacked sections, the police must normally issue a notice to appear and record reasons when they arrest instead. This is already the law under BNSS Section 35 and the Supreme Court's 2014 Arnesh Kumar checklist. In December 2023 the Supreme Court refused to stop High Courts applying that checklist to SC/ST Act cases. Few police stations follow it, and nobody checks. At first production, the magistrate must record whether the reasons were lawful. An arrest without lawful reasons earns full compensation under section 4 and a departmental inquiry.
• Recorded policing: body cameras for arrests and searches, and working CCTV in every police station, as the Supreme Court ordered in December 2020 (Paramvir Singh Saini).
• Money for sections or arrests: demanding or taking money to add, drop or soften a charge, or to arrest or not arrest someone, is prosecuted under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Conviction means dismissal, and the officer pays towards the victim's compensation.
• Whole families named: each accused must have a specific act alleged against them. A child under seven cannot commit an offence (BNS Section 20). A case naming one as an accused is quashed within seven days on a simple application, and the officer who recorded it answers in writing.

7. Stronger protection for genuine victims

Making false cases costly is half the job. The other half is making true cases succeed. Under the SC/ST Act:

• An Exclusive Special Court in every district with more than 300 atrocity cases pending trial, with its own prosecutor and staff, so the Act's two-month trial target becomes real. Today there are 217 Exclusive Special Courts, in 15 states and union territories, for about 3.9 lakh atrocity cases pending trial.
• Statements recorded on video before a magistrate within seven days for the victim and the main witnesses (BNSS Section 183), so later pressure to turn hostile matters less.
• Witness protection that works: Section 15A of the Act and the Witness Protection Scheme, 2018, funded and reported district by district.
• Relief paid on time: every instalment by bank transfer, tracked against the case number, with interest for delay.
• Pressure is prosecuted too: threatening or paying a victim or witness to change their evidence (BNS Section 232) is investigated by the same independent unit that investigates fabrication.
• A check on deterrence: if FIRs under the SC/ST Act fall more than 15% below their trend in the year after the law comes into force, the National Commissions for Scheduled Castes and for Scheduled Tribes must review whether victims are being deterred, and report to Parliament within three months.

8. Follow the relief money

• One ledger per case, linked to the FIR and court case numbers, showing every relief payment and the bank account it reached, with duplicate checks across districts.
• Relief is recovered only after a conviction for fabrication, or when the complainant admits before a court, voluntarily and with a lawyer present, that the complaint was false. In September 2024 the Allahabad High Court ordered a complainant who admitted filing a false FIR to obtain compensation to return the ₹75,000 he had received (Vihari). Relief is never recovered just because the accused was acquitted.
• Brokers and officials who take a cut of relief money face the aggravated offence and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

9. Publish everything

Every year, the National Crime Records Bureau and the Ministry of Social Justice publish, by law and by state:

• FIRs, and police closures as false, as a mistake of fact and as a civil dispute;
• acquittals and their recorded reasons;
• referrals for fabrication, and the investigations, charge sheets and convictions that follow;
• custody days paid, compensation ordered and paid, and how fast;
• money recovered, and relief paid to victims.

There are no quotas or targets for fabrication cases.

The law and the votes it needs

One bill, no constitutional amendment

The Wrongful Prosecution (Compensation and Accountability) Bill would do it all in one law, with schedules amending:

• the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita: the new aggravated offence of fabrication;
• the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita: findings in judgments, custody pay, cost claims, full compensation, the referral duty, section particulars and early section review, and the magistrate's check on arrests;
• the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and its Rules: Special Courts' powers under this law, the anticipatory-bail test in the Supreme Court's words, the relief ledger and recovery rule, and the deterrence check.

The bill would also create a State Wrongful Prosecution Compensation Fund in each state, with a central share.

Parliament has the power to pass all of this as an ordinary law. Criminal law and criminal procedure are on the Concurrent List (Entries 1 and 2), as is the administration of justice and the organisation of courts below the High Courts (Entry 11A). Police is a state subject, so states run the investigation units, but the duties placed on the police come from criminal procedure, which Parliament can legislate. Courts already treat compensation for unlawful detention as part of the right to life under Article 21 (Rudul Sah, 1983; Nilabati Behera, 1993). This law turns a discretionary remedy into an enforceable right.

Three constitutional steps apply:

• Consultation: the Union must consult the National Commissions for Scheduled Castes and for Scheduled Tribes "on all major policy matters affecting" them (Articles 338(9) and 338A(9)).
• President's recommendation: a bill that spends money from the Consolidated Fund cannot be passed without the President recommending it (Article 117(3)). The government obtains this before the debate.
• No retrospective punishment: the new offence applies only to acts after it comes into force (Article 20(1)).

The votes

The Lok Sabha is likely to have 543 seats in 2029. A bill to enlarge it to up to 850 seats was defeated in April 2026, and the seat freeze lasts until figures from the next census are published. If the number changes, the rule does not: more than half.

The Rajya Sabha is the hard part. State assemblies elect its members, a third of them every two years, so a party that wins the Lok Sabha in 2029 will not control the Rajya Sabha until it also wins state assemblies. The members elected in 2024 retire in April 2030, and those elected in 2026 in 2032. There are three routes:

1. Cross-party support. Parliament passed the 2018 amendment to this Act in 14 days, unanimously. The Supreme Court and the Law Commission have both asked for a wrongful-prosecution law. The compensation, data and victim-protection parts should find support across parties.
2. Split the bill. If the penalty and section-review parts stall in the Rajya Sabha, pass the compensation, data and victim-protection parts first as a separate bill, and keep pressing on the rest.
3. A joint sitting. If the Rajya Sabha rejects the bill or holds it for six months, the President can call a joint sitting. With 300 Lok Sabha members, the government would need 95 Rajya Sabha votes. Joint sittings have been held only three times: for the Dowry Prohibition Bill (1961), the Banking Service Commission (Repeal) Bill (1978) and the Prevention of Terrorism Bill (2002).

What a state government can do without Parliament

• Pay custody pay and costs to people acquitted in its courts, through a scheme created by executive order.
• Direct its police to record section particulars and arrest reasons, and to issue notices to appear instead of arresting.
• Set up the independent investigation unit under the State CID, and fund the State Police Complaints Authority to oversee it.
• Keep the relief ledger, pay relief on time and publish the data.
• With the President's assent, amend the BNSS for the state, for example to add the findings and the referral duty to judgments (Article 254(2)).

Changes to the SC/ST Act itself should be made by Parliament.

Implementation

Who does what

Before the election

The slowest steps, drafting and public consultation, happen before the vote, so a new government starts with a finished bill.

After a 2029 win

This assumes the 2024 calendar repeats: results in early June, a new government within a week, the first session in late June, and the full budget in July. Changes that need no new law start at once. The bill follows in two sessions.

That is ten months from swearing-in to the law in force. Parliament has moved faster on this Act before: the 2018 amendment went from introduction to assent in 14 days. Going faster here would mean skipping the Standing Committee, and a law that changes criminal liability should face one.

If the Rajya Sabha does not pass it, the President can call a joint sitting once six months have passed since the bill reached it, in the Monsoon Session of July to August 2030. The Act would then come into force on 1 October 2030. The parts that need no new law would already be running, and HRP-run states would start their own schemes in the meantime.

Cost

A rough estimate for a full year once everything is running, built from NCRB's 2024 data. The real figure depends on how many people claim, and on how far arrests fall once custody has a price.

That is 0.12% to 0.19% of the Union budget for 2026-27 (₹53.47 lakh crore). It would be shared as the centrally sponsored scheme for the SC/ST Act is shared today: half from the Centre for the states, all of it for union territories. The Centre's share would be about ₹3,300–5,000 crore. For comparison, that scheme's whole budget for 2026-27 is ₹550 crore.

Some of the money comes back. Every day of custody avoided also saves the cost of holding someone in jail. Money is recovered from fabricators and from officials found responsible. And states that arrest carelessly pay more, which is the pressure the system has always lacked.

Similar policies elsewhere

Paying people who were not convicted

Germany, Japan, France and Norway pay because the State held someone it could not convict. They do not ask the person to prove their innocence. Norway's law says compensation cannot be cut because someone still suspects the person was guilty. Germany refuses payment where the accused caused the prosecution deliberately or by gross negligence, for example by falsely incriminating themselves. This reform takes custody pay ordered in the judgment and costs at a fixed scale from Germany, the no-proof-of-innocence rule from Japan and Norway, and full compensation for harm from France.

England and Wales show what to avoid. From April 2016 to March 2024, only 39 of 591 applications met the "beyond reasonable doubt that they did not do it" test. Most acquitted defendants who paid for their own lawyers can recover fees only at legal-aid rates, a gap known as the "innocence tax". The government promised in 2023 to close it and had not done so by October 2026.

Punishing false complaints

Germany and France let a court act against a false complainant on its own. None of these countries makes a court consider it in every case that collapses. The duty to decide, within 30 days, goes further than any of them.

Aggravated charges

In England and Wales, an assault becomes "racially aggravated" only if the prosecution separately proves hostility based on race, to the criminal standard. Evidence of the assault alone is not enough, and a jury can convict of the basic assault and reject the aggravation. US federal hate-crime law requires proof that the injury was caused "because of" race, religion or national origin. The SC/ST Act defines its offences differently, but the lesson carries over. An added charge needs its own particulars and its own evidence, and the basic case continues without it.

International law

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires compensation for anyone unlawfully arrested or detained (Article 9(5)). When India acceded in 1979, it declared that "under the Indian Legal System, there is no enforceable right to compensation for persons claiming to be victims of unlawful arrest or detention against the State." Indian courts have since awarded such compensation under Article 21. This reform makes the right enforceable by statute, and the government will withdraw the 1979 declaration once the law is in force.

Trade-offs

• It costs money. Paying for custody turns every unnecessary arrest into a bill for the State. That is the point, but the money competes with schools and hospitals (see Cost).
• Some people who did commit a crime will be paid because the prosecution failed to prove it. Every country that pays after acquittal accepts this. The alternative, making acquitted people prove their innocence before they are paid, fails exactly the innocent people who cannot prove a negative. The exclusions remove the worst cases, such as an accused who frightened witnesses.
• Some complainants will face questions about their motive. The safeguards limit this to court referrals and to knowing lies proved beyond reasonable doubt, but it is a real cost to people who are already hurting.
• Courts get more work at first: one more finding in each judgment, cost claims and fabrication trials. Fewer needless arrests and early section review should cut work later, and the plan pays for more judges.
• Writing the anticipatory-bail test into the SC/ST Act will be read by some as weakening it. It changes nothing the Supreme Court has not already held. Written law helps every court apply it the same way.
• A minimum sentence limits judges' discretion. It applies only to aggravated fabrication, and the court can go below it for recorded reasons.

Who loses

• Officers and middlemen who earn from the threat of arrest and the sale of sections.
• People who file false cases to win land, money, family or political disputes, and anyone who pays them.
• Politicians of every party who use FIRs against rivals, critics and journalists.
• State treasuries in the short run. The states that arrest most freely will pay most.
• Investigators and prosecutors who keep weak cases alive because, today, doing so costs them nothing.

Alternatives considered

• Bring back the 2018 safeguards (a preliminary enquiry before an FIR, senior approval before an arrest). Rejected. It adds another police gate that can be sold, or used to bury true complaints. It acts before anyone knows whether a case is true, and does nothing once a case turns out to be false.
• Allow anticipatory bail in every SC/ST Act case. Rejected. In real atrocity cases the accused are often locally powerful, and freedom from arrest can become freedom to intimidate. Arrest reasons checked by a magistrate, and the Supreme Court's prima facie test, target false cases without opening that door.
• Prosecute the complainant automatically after an acquittal. Rejected. Most acquittals are not false cases, and the threat would silence victims of every crime.
• A special penalty only for false SC/ST Act complaints. Rejected. It would treat complainants from one group as suspects, and false cases under other laws ruin lives too.
• Leave it to civil suits for malicious prosecution. Rejected. The falsely accused person has to prove malice and the absence of reasonable cause, pay a court fee and wait years. Very few win.
• A third verdict, such as "not proven" or "honourably acquitted". Rejected. It creates second-class acquittals, which is why Scotland abolished "not proven". Clear reasons in the judgment do the job.
• Leave compensation to High Court writs under Article 21. Rejected. Courts award it at their discretion, and mainly to people who can afford to reach a High Court.

Measuring success

Baselines are from 2024 unless stated. Targets are for 2034, four years after the law comes into force.

Questions and objections

Isn't this an attack on Dalits and Adivasis?

No. Nothing the SC/ST Act gives victims is taken away: the FIR at once, no preliminary enquiry, no approval before arrest, relief at the FIR and charge-sheet stages, and Special Courts. The rules on false cases apply to every law and every complainant. That includes the false counter-cases that are often filed against Dalits and Adivasis who complain. The reform also adds the protections victims say they lack most: faster trials, early recorded statements and witness protection.

In September 2026 the Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the 2018 amendment. The Chief Justice said misuse should be dealt with by courts in individual cases, and that misuse does not make the law itself bad. This reform gives courts the tools to do exactly that.

Won't fear of prosecution stop genuine victims from complaining?

This is the biggest risk, and the design is built around it:

• Only the court that heard the case can start a fabrication case arising from it, and not while the case is pending.
• An acquittal, a hostile witness, a compromise or a withdrawn complaint is never enough.
• The prosecution must prove a knowing lie beyond reasonable doubt. A complaint that is true in substance, even if exaggerated, or one where the police chose the wrong section, is not fabrication.
• Pressuring a victim to turn hostile is prosecuted by the same independent unit.
• If FIRs under the SC/ST Act drop more than 15% below trend, the National Commissions must review the cause and report to Parliament.

How many SC/ST Act cases are actually false?

Nobody knows for certain. In 2024 the police closed 6,055 cases of crimes against Scheduled Castes as "false", 11.0% of the cases they disposed of. For Scheduled Tribes it was 1,365 cases, or 14.1%. For all crimes the share was 3.6%. That is the investigating officers' own view, not a court's finding.

Courts convicted in a third of the atrocity cases they decided, against more than half for all crimes. In the other two-thirds, the accused are not guilty in law.

No official source counts cases that a court has found deliberately fabricated. The reform does not need that number settled: it pays wrongly prosecuted people whatever the reason, punishes fabrication wherever it is proved, and makes the State count both.

An acquittal doesn't mean the person was innocent. Why pay people who might be guilty?

In law it does mean that: everyone is presumed innocent until proved guilty. The payment is not a reward. It is the price of custody the State chose to impose and could not justify. Germany, Japan, France and Norway pay on this basis. Norway's law says a payment cannot be cut because someone still suspects the person was guilty. Payment is refused where the accused pressured witnesses or misled the investigation. And once every needless day in custody shows up on the State's bill, police and prosecutors have a reason to investigate before they arrest.

My family paid the police to avoid an arrest. How does this stop that?

The threat of arrest is the main thing being sold, and the reform takes most of it away. For offences punishable with up to seven years, the police must issue a notice to appear instead of arresting, unless they record lawful reasons. A magistrate checks those reasons at the first hearing, arrests are filmed on body cameras, and police-station CCTV must work. Every section in a charge sheet needs written particulars, and an officer whose section is dropped for lack of any basis must explain why. An officer convicted of taking money for an arrest or a section is dismissed and pays towards the victim's compensation. Complaints go to an investigation unit outside the district.

Will it apply to cases already filed?

Compensation applies to every case that ends without a conviction from 1 April 2030, including custody served before that date. The new aggravated offence and its higher penalties apply only to fabrication after the law comes into force, because the Constitution forbids punishing anyone under a law that did not exist when they acted (Article 20(1)). Older fabrication can still be referred and prosecuted under BNS Section 248 or IPC Section 211, the law in force at the time.

What about FIRs that name whole families, or even small children?

Each accused must have a specific act alleged against them, and a section without particulars cannot be framed as a charge. A child under seven cannot commit an offence under Indian law. A case naming one as an accused is quashed within seven days on a simple application, and the officer who recorded it must explain in writing. Relatives named without any specific act alleged can seek discharge within the 30-day section review.

What if the police, not the complainant, added the caste angle?

Then the complainant is not liable for it. The officer who added the section must explain it in writing if the court drops it. If the officer knowingly invented it, they face the aggravated offence (committed by a public servant), dismissal, and recovery towards the compensation the State paid.

Can the accused use this law to harass the complainant?

Only the trial court can start a fabrication case arising from the original case, and no FIR for fabrication can be registered on the accused's complaint while that case is pending. Applications for referral are decided on the trial record. A frivolous application can be dismissed with costs. The complainant gets legal aid.

Why should the State pay first, instead of the person who lied?

Because the person who was wrongly prosecuted should not wait years for a second trial, or depend on whether the liar has any money. The State arrested and prosecuted them, so the State pays. It then recovers what it can: from officials after a disciplinary finding, and from private persons after a conviction for fabrication.

Why one law for every kind of case, instead of fixing only the SC/ST Act?

False cases under laws on cruelty and dowry, rape, child sexual abuse, cheating and assault ruin lives too. A penalty aimed only at complainants from one community would treat them as suspects, would likely fail the Constitution's equality test, and would rightly be seen as an attack. A single standard for everyone is fairer and harder to dismiss.

Isn't a minimum of two years too harsh?

It applies only to aggravated fabrication: done for money or by a group, by a public servant, by a repeat offender, causing an innocent person to be jailed, or aimed at public money. Ordinary false charges keep the existing penalty under BNS Section 248, with no minimum. Even in aggravated cases, the court can go below two years for exceptional reasons it records.

Won't this clog the courts even more?

Custody pay is a line in the judgment, and the cost claim is decided on the trial record. Fabrication trials follow only court referrals, which should be a small number. Early section review and fewer needless arrests should cut work: a stacked section dropped at day 60 saves years of trial on it. The plan also pays for additional judges and Exclusive Special Courts.

Does this need a constitutional amendment?

No. Parliament can pass it as an ordinary law under its power over criminal law and criminal procedure. See "The law and the votes it needs".

What if HRP is not in government?

Most of this can still happen. A state government can start a compensation scheme by executive order, direct its police on section particulars and arrest reasons, set up an independent investigation unit and publish the data, all without Parliament. HRP will push the bill from opposition, and make it a condition of supporting any coalition. A private member's bill is also possible, but only 14 have ever become law, the last in 1970.

Sources

Data

• NCRB, Crime in India 2024, Volume II: Tables 7A.3–7A.8 (Scheduled Castes) and 7C.3–7C.6 (Scheduled Tribes)
• NCRB, Crime in India 2024, Volume III: Tables 17A.2, 18A.2 and 19A.6 (all crimes)
• NCRB, Prison Statistics India 2024: Tables 6.4, 7.1 and 7.3
• PIB, 1 October 2026: Exclusive Special Courts and relief beneficiaries
• Union Budget 2026-27, Demand No. 93: scheme for the PCR and PoA Acts
• Union Budget 2026-27 at a glance
• RBI Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy: per-capita net national income

Law and reports

• Law Commission of India, Report No. 277: Wrongful Prosecution (Miscarriage of Justice): Legal Remedies (2018)
• SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Rules, 2016
• SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018 (Gazette)
• PRS: the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Bill, 2018
• PRS: the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023
• PRS: how India makes laws, and pre-legislative consultation
• PRS: the Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill and delimitation, 2026
• Constitution of India

Judgments

• Prathvi Raj Chauhan v Union of India (10 February 2020)
• Hitesh Verma v State of Uttarakhand (5 November 2020)
• Shajan Skaria v State of Kerala (23 August 2024)
• Kiran v Rajkumar Jivraj Jain (1 September 2025), LiveLaw
• State of Madhya Pradesh v Bhure (6 August 2024)
• Kattavellai v State of Tamil Nadu (15 July 2025), LiveLaw
• Supreme Court dismisses challenge to the 2018 amendment (22 September 2026), LiveLaw
• Allahabad High Court orders refund of relief after a false FIR (Vihari, September 2024), ThePrint
• Times Now: Vishnu Tiwari narrates his ordeal (video)
• Vishnu Tiwari, acquitted after 20 years in jail (March 2021), ThePrint
• Supreme Court declines to frame compensation guidelines (2022), Verdictum
• Dainik Bhaskar: Bihar gang arranges fake SC/ST cases for money (October 2026)
• Akashvani Speaking: interview in Bhatla village, Hisar (video, July 2025)
• Bhaskar English: Bihar SC/ST Act racket (video, October 2026) and Dainik Bhaskar: Bihar fake SC/ST case gang exposed (short video)
• Punjab Kesari Haryana: Gurugram arrest (video, December 2021) and Navodaya Times: Delhi honey-trap gang (video, May 2026)
• ThePrint: Gurugram woman who filed seven rape cases held for extortion (2021)
• Siasat: woman arrested for filing multiple fake rape cases in Belagavi (May 2026)
• The Hawk: Delhi dating-app extortion racket busted (May 2026)
• India Today: Jharkhand CM files SC/ST Act complaint against ED officers (video, January 2024)
• ETV Bharat: Jharkhand High Court fines Hemant Soren ₹10,000 for seeking more time (October 2026)
• Jharkhand High Court bars coercive action against ED officers in SC/ST Act FIR (March 2024), LiveLaw
• Arvind Kumar v State of Uttar Pradesh (11 August 2026): statewide review of repeated relief claims, LiveLaw
• Lakshya Rawat v State of Uttar Pradesh (12 April 2024)
• Arnesh Kumar v State of Bihar (2 July 2014)
• Supreme Court declines to bar Arnesh Kumar in SC/ST Act cases (December 2023), Verdictum

Other countries

• Germany: Act on Compensation for Criminal Prosecution Measures (StrEG)
• Germany: Code of Criminal Procedure §467 (costs on acquittal) and §469 (costs on a false report)
• Germany: Criminal Code §164 (false accusation)
• France: Code of Criminal Procedure, Articles 149 onward
• France: Penal Code, Article 226-10
• Japan: Criminal Compensation Act
• Norway: Criminal Procedure Act, §444 and §446
• UK: Criminal Justice Act 1988, section 133 and the 2025 increase in the caps
• UK Ministry of Justice: miscarriage of justice claims, April 2016 to March 2026
• Crown Prosecution Service: racist and religious hate crime guidance
• US: 28 U.S.C. §2513 and National Registry of Exonerations: compensation
• Scotland: abolition of the not proven verdict
• UN Treaty Collection: ICCPR declarations, including India's